


Collateral

by Laplapine



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Becuase mobsters, Cam Girl, Daddy Kink, Dubious Morality, F/M, Gang Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Italian Mafia, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, No Age Play, Non-Penetrative Sex, Older Man/Younger Woman, Organized Crime, Prostitution, Russian Mafia, Sex Toys, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slow Burn, Soft BDSM, Sugar Baby, Sugar Daddy, Voyeurism, Webcam/Video Chat Sex, but more complicated, the camgirl to almost-escort to sugar baby mafia romance that no one needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:54:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28581576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laplapine/pseuds/Laplapine
Summary: She's been lying for so long, pretending for so long, that she thinks she forgot what it was like, what itfelt like, to want something for herself.She thinks about the pictures in the group homes, scribbled houses and families made of cheap-crayon, wishes and hopes and dreams that fade just as quickly as the crayons that made them.Now, she thinks, her pictures would be scribbled ideas of what it’d be like to be able to afford a place like this… or, to be like Grace, given a place like this, to be dressed and doted on, kept and cared for, even if it’s all built on money and a contract.The idea of it settles strangely in her stomach like the oil of the balsamic dressing, tart and sweet and sour all at once.(To have hot showers. Nice clothes. To sleep in a proper bed instead of a futon on the floor. To eat properly, maybe even put on some weight instead of cinching the waist of her jeans whenever rent is due.)Collateral:1. Injury or damage inflicted on an unintended target.2. Something used as security for repayment of a loan or debt.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 115
Kudos: 156





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Been sitting on this for a while figured I might as well see if there's anyone interested in this sort of trash too.
> 
> There's some violence and a fair bit of dubious morality as there's a wee, wee bit of underage, but OFC is seventeen, nearly eighteen, and no actual, penetrative sex happens between the two main characters before she's 18...but many other things will and if the idea of that bothers you, please don't read on. This is just for fun and none of its real.

* * *

One

* * *

“Chloe!”

Chloe jolts up, the chill of the apartment hitting her skin as she blinks into wakefulness—

“ _Chloe_!”

And fights the covers, feet tangled as she stumbles out of bed, ripping out of the twist of her sheets as she reaches for her baseball bat as she goes tripping out into the hall, socked feet sliding as she skids into the kitchen.

“Kayla, wh—” she starts, finding Kayla standing on a chair, face white, a spatula clenched desperately in her hands.

“Kill it! Oh my _God—_ ”

Her bat _thunks_ against the floor. _“Seriously!_ I thought you were being murdered!”

“Kill it, Clo!”

“Kill wh—”

“There!”

Chloe follows the pointing finger to the open cupboard beneath the sink; it takes her a blurry moment to find the black splotch that hangs listlessly on the crooked door.

“Get it! Please!”

Chloe does her best not to laugh, holding her hand out for the spatula, waiting for Kayla to hand it to her across the distance, her eyes flicking between Chloe and the cupboard. Watching as Chloe sets the tip of spatula against the door and then edges it towards the spider…

“Chloe, just kill it!”

“It’s fine, Kayla,” Chloe laughs. “Little buggie deserves a chance too, doesn’t he?”

“No!” Kayla shouts, her face twisting with disgust as she watches Chloe scoop the spider onto the spatula and move towards the fire escape near the other girl. Kayla all but leaps across the kitchen, giving Chloe a wide berth to climb out the window and onto the chilly metal grate. The early New York air pushes pebbles across her skin as her bare feet touch it, leaning out to put the spatula against the railing and tapping it a little to get it to move off.

“You better wash that!” Kayla calls, her voice shrill.

“I’m gonna make you eggs with it,” Chloe laughs, watching the spider scoot across the railing before she climbs back through the small window and into the kitchen.

Kayla scowls at her from the doorway, eyes darting to the window accusingly. “If it comes back—”

“It’s not a stray cat, Kay,” Chloe laughs. “It’s gone. Though who knows what else—”

“As long as I don’t see them, I don’t care. And I don’t want to _know_!” she scowls, turning away and slamming into the bathroom as Chloe laughs.

Chloe stands under the spray of the sputtering, uneven shower and yawns, chasing the last of the shampoo out of her hair just as the water turns from lukewarm to cold to freezing in seconds.

“Fucking _fuck_ ,” she hisses and smacks at the taps to shut off the spray.

Wrapping a threadbare towel around her body, Chloe pounds a hand on the wall. “Kayla, you suck!”

“ _Sorry_!” comes muffled back through the thin walls. “I have to work!”

Chloe sighs, shivering in the small bathroom, scrubbing at her skin to chase the water off. _So do I,_ she thinks and bites her tongue. Annoyed and cold and shivering from the cold shower, cold apartment, cold reality of the meager moment of her life.

Annoyed at the lack of conditioner in her hair as she scrubs the towel through it, wincing at the tangles.

Annoyed at the sound of the music already beating against the wall, from the guys who live next door.

It’s no one’s fault they live like they do, and she knows, _she does,_ that their shitty apartment is better than any group home or youth center, or worse, taking a risk with another foster-family of some kind.

Chloe scrubs at her hair, tugging her fingers through it to pull it a little straighter, to make the mess of it into something like _just-fucked_ instead of something like _what-died-on-your-head_.

Heading back down the cramped hallway and into her room, Chloe hangs her towel over the hook on the back of her closet door and yanks on an old t-shirt and sweats while she rifles through the hangars and drawers in her closet.

This part of the evening is like picking a character, a role, a piece of a story that Chloe will tell with lace or leather or a shy smile and a little blush.

Becoming someone else keeps everything clear-cut, keeps Chloe _Chloe_ , even when she’s playing a part. Pulls her further from it, spreading a stage out between her and her…audience. It gives her distance, control. The ability to not just shut off the feed, but to shut off _Chloe_ for a little while.

Besides, the money is decent, the hours are tolerable, and she doesn’t have to be bound by schedules or bosses or creepy, handsy customers like Kayla does. Chloe sets her own rules, says _yes_ when she wants, _no_ when she wants... and in every session, she has the last word.

All she has to do, in exchange for that unfettered freedom is to swallow a bit of pride, just a little, and play around in front of a camera for a few hours.

She’s _Clover_ online, which was better than a lot of names they had come up with, if she's being honest. It's simple, curious, and cute, but not…overt. Like Kayla had said, when Chloe had first brought up the idea, that Chloe’s got a look about her, a certain look that doesn’t really meet up with a name like Harllot, or SavageTease.

 _You’re too… innocent looking,_ she had said, _like you came right of a high school, not a porn-site._

Chloe had wanted to argue, because she _could look like that, if I wanted to,_ but really, Kayla is right, she thinks, as she pulls out a white shirt and a red tartan skirt, _playing your strengths and knowing your audience goes a long way._

Chloe looks like she came right out of a high school because... she _did. Not that they need to know that,_ she thinks.

She pulls on the slightly too-short school-skirt, the white button-up shirt and white knee-highs. For authenticity, she adds a tie, but keeps it a little loose, the top button of her shirt undone; makes herself a little less than proper as she goes about making herself _a little less than proper._

She pushes out a few lunges and a few sit ups, tucking her feet under her bed to brace herself, warming herself up and putting a flush into her cheeks that will take a little while to fade and by the time it does, she’ll be flushed with something else, anyway.

She turns on the lights above her desk, blinks into the brightness until her eyes adjust and hears a knock behind her, just before the door opens.

“Schoolgirl tonight, huh? Must be a big night,” Kayla leans in, looking her over, her hesitation obvious in the little line between her brows.

Chloe shrugs. “Rent’s due, figured this would draw them in a bit more.”

Kayla rolls her eyes, “Well, you do look…debauched.”

“Not yet,” Chloe shrugs and Kayla shakes her head, leaning against the doorframe.

“Be safe. Make sure—”

“Kayla,” Chloe starts, they both know the rules, they both work jobs where they give a little bit of themselves to get a little more than minimum wage back; Kayla at a club in lower Manhattan, picking up shifts around her classes, and Chloe…films herself, cams— acts for an audience of the lonely.

Or horny.

 _Judge_ _not_ , and all that.

“It’s just for a little longer, we can’t make rent if I don’t.”

Kayla’s mouth tightens but she nods. “I know. Only for a bit longer, once I’m done school…”

Chloe nods, they both know their plans; they’ve been scraping by, stuck together since they were six and nine, pinkies locked in a promise, whispering: _you and me, no matter what._

“Be safe,” Chloe says back, and Kayla nods, her own outfit tighter than Chloe’s, heels deadly, hair a mass of curls; dressed in a costume just as much as Chloe is.

“You too,” she says with a little smile before she turns to go, and Chloe listens to the other girl’s heels click down the hallway, listens to the front door open and shut and sends her a quick text of, _let me know when you get to the bar._

Her answer pings back seconds later with a: _always do—_ and Chloe settles into the chair and angles the camera so she’s in full view. She watches herself for a few seconds, her small, white-walled room illuminated in a gold-glow behind her by a string of fairy lights over her bed that adds a little softness to the otherwise barren room.

There’s always nerves at first, a split-second hesitation, a momentary thought to just… _not doing it,_ to getting another part-time, minimum-wage job instead— but she reaches for a bottle of cheap tequila, kept out of sight behind her laptop and takes a swig, just one to settle the nerves and ease her muscles.

She breathes out tequila and hesitation, leaning back and propping her legs over one arm of the chair so the drape of her skirt _just_ covers the starting curve of her ass— and clicks the _online_ button.

The chatroom stays quiet for a few minutes until the pings start rolling in; she hasn’t been doing this for long, but she’s amassed a few loyal fans, enough to make her appearances worthwhile. Enough to kill the last of her nerves and remind her why this is better than working at a coffee shop or somewhere else where she’d be relying more on tips than a paycheck.

There are a few messages popping up, a group chat starting to ping along the bottom of the screen in the first few minutes of her signing on. It’s flattering and… _not_ , all at once, she thinks, as she clicks into it.

_Where you been! It’s been so long!_

_Wondered when we’d see that cute ass again._

_Men_ , Chloe thinks, _so predictable._

Chloe smiles, bites her lip and gives them a little shy smile; shifting in her chair, she’s quietly thankful that she’s never had a problem with faking it ‘til you make it.

It doesn’t take long to settle in; she knows a lot of the usernames coming in as the night goes on, a lot of familiar greetings, a lot of corny, too-forward, too-descriptive things being typed into the chat space. Chloe ignores it, watches the list grow while talking to a few of her regulars, asking how they’ve been, if they’ve missed her, what they’d like to see...

As the requests roll in, and tokens ping, she loosens her shirt, her tie skewed, the peek of her white bra enough to start more requests.

Schoolgirl always brings them in.

She bounces her leg over the side of the chair, her underwear flashing along the curve of her bottom, the skirt rolled too short to really hide much.

The countdown to the show takes less time than she expected, the token count rising as she talks and flirts and fluffs off too personal, too-sexual questions and leads them towards tipping for the show. And then she crests the 1000 token mark and opens a smaller group chat at a higher rate.

It’s nearly all names she recognises, some less so than others, but ones she knows she’s seen before, a few times at least. It’s easier this way she thinks, to do just well enough that it’s all worthwhile, but not well enough it takes over her life.

Though sometimes, after a good night, after a generous tip outside of the norm, she thinks about pushing harder, doing more… but she doesn’t think she wants that kind of attention.

Actually, she knows she _shouldn’t_ risk that sort of attention.

She really isn’t sure how the top girls do it, knowing there are hundreds or more faceless men watching you, she’ll stick to her few, not all faceless and unknown, men.

And just as she’s about to start, a new user pops up, right at the last call for the smaller show and Chloe clicks on the profile out of curiosity, the username plain and not one she recognises at all.

_LXXK joins Clover’s Private Show._

LXXK doesn’t interact, his profile blank; Chloe isn’t quite sure why he’d join and not just perv-watch like all the other voyeurs paying the same rate.

But he does, his username stays on the _Joined Members_ list and Chloe shrugs it off as some newer guy who doesn’t quite understand chatrooms yet.

The dirtier messages trail off in the smaller chat, and because she recognises most of the men in the room with her, she asks them what they want to see out of the things she’s done before… it starts simple enough: more skin, a peak of her underwear, an slightly odd but not really surprising request to braid her hair into pigtails that she does easily, leaving them loose to unravel slowly as she doesn’t have hair ties on her.

LXXK stays inactive during the chat, not tipping and not interacting at all; she thinks about booting him, because she…knows the men that frequent her private shows, for as much as that’s possible to know or like men that watch her undress or get off or…do whatever it is that floats their boats for a few minutes and a few tokens.

But she lets him stay, figuring he really might be just like one of her most frequent supporters dstriker75, _Dave, my names Dave, btw—_ who she knows, is divorced, currently single, and part-time dad to two nearly-adult boys, and it took him a few weeks to work up the courage to do more than just…perv in silence.

 _Plus_ , she thinks, it is better than some of the newbies that happen occasionally, the one’s who type about smearing cum over Chloe’s face or asking how tight she is. Almost all the same generally, varying levels of lewdness and depravity, being new and without a proper profile doesn’t automatically make LXXK any different that Dave was, just… _new_.

As the time ticks by and the tokens continue to come in, Chloe loses her shirt but not her bra, watches for the tips and the requests and gets herself off beneath her underwear, knees hooked over the chair arms, strappy bra hanging loose over her shoulders, just barely hiding the hard peak of her nipples; watching herself in the reflected back video of herself, which helps her forget everything but the clink of tokens and her own hand and body.

She does look debauched.

But that’s the point, isn’t it?

Chloe comes, toes curling, the clink of coins a distant sound and slips the slick of her fingers out of from her underwear, pulling in air and blinking at the at the camera, letting her fingers leave a trail on her stomach, over one breast, up towards her mouth and forces a smile as she licks the slick of her release off her own fingers.

Usually she’d talk some more, maybe get off again, with or without underwear depending on tokens and bills and her own desire/need/want. But the landlord’s been after them for rent, _two hundred bucks more_ , he said, because he’s ‘ _trying to fix the place up’_ , which is bullshit, she thinks, but it’s still cheaper than any other place they’ve stayed, so they’ll take it, just like he knows they will.

He hasn’t even fixed the heaters like he said he would. Or the water. Or _anything._

So she reaches into the drawer beneath her desk, pulling out a toy, a large pink thing she doesn’t use often, only when she really needs those extra bucks and doesn’t have the time or energy or _want_ to put on a show every night of the week. (She _really_ isn’t sure how the top girls do it.)

 _Private show,_ she says slowly, with a little half smile and a bitten lip, _gets to watch me take this._

There’s an array of requests for more, the rising climb of offers to stay and do it in the semi-private room, the known list of familiar names all active and dropping tokens while Chloe brings the toy to her mouth, dragging her tongue and saying _sorry, I can’t tonight, school night, you know?_

Except for LXXK, who’s been silent and inactive…but online, she can tell, the green dot active and a part of the group.

She’s not sure if she’s disappointed or not, LX is probably just bored and horny and doesn’t care enough about what he sees to interact, like most of them, it’s less about the girl than the getting off.

 _Besides_ , Chloe thinks, just because he’s knew to his room, doesn’t mean he’s new to camgirls in general. Maybe he just likes variety. Scoping out the newer girls.

 _Oh well, s_ he thinks, pushing the toy farther into her mouth, letting eyes water, just a little, looking up through her lashes, waiting for the bids to climb higher, for one of her regulars to reach the top…Dave’s name right where he usually is… and moves to click to accept his offer when—

LX pings in.

With 5000, which is more than twice what Chloe expects and she blinks, mouth _popping_ off the toy; she licks up her own spit on reflex and clicks on _accept PM_ with _LXXK,_ with no real second thought.

_I’ll make it 10 if you make this completely private._

_Must be knew,_ she thinks, _because that’s how private shows work…_ but she isn’t going to tell him that. 10, 000 tokens is... unbeliveable. There's no way... but— but she finds herself reaching for her keyboard anyway.

 _Okay,_ she types in, biting her lip as she waves goodbye to the men in her room, pouting a little and telling them she'll see them later, before she clicks into a private show with just LXXK.

The chat room screen switches over and Chloe sees—

 _Shit_ , Chloe thinks. _He’s attractive._

He's— _stupid_ hot.

Dark-haired, light-eyed, a day’s stubble on an sharp, broad jaw… way, way too attractive to be on a camgirl site, Chlow thinks. More fit for a model spread than this kind of … spread.

 _Maybe he’s got a small dick_ , she thinks and meets his eyes through the screen; he looks at her, then those light-coloured eyes flick down, slow and heavyas they move over her and—

“How old are you?”

 _Shit_ , she thinks, even his _voice_ is attractive. Deep and a little rough, rolling through her speakers.

“Twenty-one,” Chloe lies and shifts in her chair, her underwear slick beneath her; waiting, wondering what he’ll be like. If he’ll be a creep. If he’ll want something gross like the guy who wanted to watch her going to the bathroom.

Which was just… _yikes._

He looks at her, eyes narrowing, just a little. “You look younger.”

“Get that a lot,” Chloe shrugs. “Helps fill the role, you know?” she looks down the rumple of her skirt, the skewed knee highs, and licks her lips, tilting her head and grabbing the slippery toy in her hand more firmly. She doesn't miss the way his eyes flick to it in her lap. “The whole, jail-bait thing.”

He huffs a laugh, smile sharp and quick and Chloe’s stomach does a little flip; _he really is stupidly attractive_ , she thinks and then, briefly: _should have just clicked on Dave._

Divorced, boring guy was safe— attractive new guy is decidedly…not.

“I’d say so,” he mutters and then he shifts and Chloe sees more of him, broad, heavy shoulders that tease a muscled, hard chest... and she thinks, _yeah, Clo, you made the wrong choice,_ as she feels her cheeks flush. 

She's never really thought about it before but she's never done this with someone she _actually_ found attractive. Never been in a position where she's looked through her computer screen and thought the man watching her was someone she would want to touch her in real life.

But the thought's there now, sitting in the back of her head, as she watches him run a hand through his hair, his hand large and his fingers long and thick... she’s finding it hard to separate herself from the moment.

He watches her for another moment, and Chloe swallows her nerves. “Well, you’re sort of in charge in here, you know, you get to ask for whatever you want. Within reason.”

His eyes travel over her, shifting in what she would guess is a bed, the glow of his computer lighting up the dark, shiny wood headboard behind him, painting him a pale blue with a tinge of a yellow light from a bedside table.

“What’s your name?”

“Clara,” Chloe lies, because it’s close enough and sounds similar enough she reacts to it when she hears it, which is important, isn’t it? To sell the…illusion. “Clover, Clara, see?”

His eyes narrow, just a little, held tilting back to rest on the headboard, his head nearly almost out of the view of the camera, and she can tell he’s leaning back on the headboard, the laptop on the bed beside him, looking sort of…sleep-rumpled.

Which is odd, not because of how late it is, but more because most of the shared camera sessions she gets are men at computer desks or, if they are in bed, they definitely weren’t…tired.

She can see the flex of his arm, the heavy weight of well-defined muscles shift in the yellow-tint of a bedside table light as he adjusts the screen, moving the laptop a little closer. It cuts off a little more of him, the camera tilting up a little, to show what looks like a hotel-room-esque sort of set up, a wall lamp, a standard abstract art piece on the wall behind the bed. A heavy, dark-wooded bed.

She thinks it might really be a hotel. Maybe that’s why he’s in a chatroom, some businessman, bored and alone and too lazy to go out to pick someone up at a bar.

He turns away for a second, Chloe watches his profile, a blurred shift of his body as the bed shifts a little as he reaches for a drink, a small tumbler with a few fingers of amber liquid, a clink of ice before he lifts it to his mouth and holds it in his other hand.

Which is weird, she thinks, because she can see both hands and that, really, _really_ isn’t normal for shows at all.

They tend to be more…single handed ventures, if you know what she means.

“What do you normally do in here?” he asks, licking the alcohol-shine off his lips, his eyes sinking over her, weighted and curious.

His eyes are… blue, maybe, she thinks, lit up even lighter in the screen of his laptop.

 _He is stupid attractive,_ she thinks, and can’t help but wonder again, why he’s here at all. New to chats, _obviously,_ new to private rooms, _definitely,_ new to… camgirls? You’d think an escort would be more his speed, even if he was lazy and on business.

“You never done this before?” she asks, leaning back in the chair, trying to remind herself he’s spending money every minute he’s there and she’s supposed to be putting on a show.

He shakes his head, mouth a little crooked with humour. “No, definitely not. I’m more of a… face to face kind of person.”

“Oh,” she breathes out, nodding and smiling a little teasing smile. “A _hobbyist.”_

He blinks at her and then laughs, the sound deep and low settling warm in her stomach, making her bite her cheek. “A _hobbyist_ , really, sweetheart? I’m not that bad.”

Chloe shrugs, ignoring the way he says _sweetheart_ and how it settles inside of her stomach. “Nothing wrong with it. A lot of the men on here are. Just for like, camgirls, not escorts, obviously. It’s nothing personal.”

“Get a lot of those, do you?”

She shakes her head, scoffing. “No, I’m not… the top girls usually get more of those kinds.” She pauses, looking at him. “No offence, but if you usually use escorts, why are you on a cam-site?”

His eyes narrow a little, watching her as he lifts his drink to his mouth again. The silence goes on a beat too long as he watches her. She tries not to fidget, letting him look. “I said I have used escorts, not that I always do. Sometimes I like to do things the old fashioned way, you know. Dinner, drinks…”

“So you’re the love ‘em and leave ‘em type,” she nods, teasing and smiling; shifting in the chair to throw one leg over one arm, her leg bouncing as she talks. His eyes follow the movement, tracking along her socked-foot to her calf and thigh.

He smiles, crooked and entertained even as his eyes trail towards the splay of her legs, where she knows her thighs are shiny and sticky. “Sure. Keeps things clean and easy, doesn’t it?”

Chloe shrugs, because she can’t argue it. He isn’t wrong, there’s a reason Chloe uses a camera and hasn’t ever taken up her sort-of co-workers offer to make more money doing things _in person._

It’s easier, simpler, _cleaner._

“Cute socks,” he mutters around the rim of his drink, watching her as he swallows.

She thinks again that she probably should have stuck with Dave, divorced, lonely guy was safe— and no matter how he looked at her or how he smiled or how nice he was, Chloe never felt that little bubble of attraction she does right now; his eyes on her, his voice alcohol-rough, sleep-rough, maybe, if that rumpled hair look is anything to go by.

There’s an itch to ask where he is, if he is some bored guy in a hotel room, too late to call an escort, looking for a quick girl to get off with. Maybe he already had one and sent her packing, but now he’s like, residual-horny and alone and looking for a quickie with more than just his hand and a porn vid.

She isn’t sure why she cares…he’s nothing more than another guy in a cam-room. He still picked Chloe in her school-girl outfit and…well, she doesn’t look exactly _legal_ and that’s the point, isn’t it?

He hasn’t even asked for anything, watching Chloe on the screen, _talking_ to her.

“It’s by the minute in here, you know,” she blurts, cursing herself as soon as she says it because— _hello, Clo, easy money?_ and she knocks her other knee a little wider, the pink, garish, too-large toy still in her lap, loose in her hand, still a little shiny from her spit.

He tilts his head, lips quirking. “So are escorts. They just come in a lump sum.”

That annoys her, more than it should and she thinks about cutting the feed. But the five thousand hasn’t been sent, even though he’s still paying four bucks every minute in the room.

“I’m not an escort,” she says and bites her cheek, annoyed by his growing smirk. “And if I was, I would be worth more than two-fifty.”

“You’re already worth more than two-fifty, sweetheart,” he drawls, entertained, head tilting back against the headboard.

Her heart skips and she isn’t sure why, stomach tensing at his words. Which is stupid, she tells herself, Dave has told her the same sort of thing on some of their chats. _You’re too cute to be doing this, you know. Even though I— you know… like you._

Divorced, lonely Dave doesn’t quite understand that selling moments and smiles and conversation on cam isn’t really all that different than selling smiles and conversation in bars.

The internet just tips better.

“And I’m pretty sure I offered you five-hundred.”

 _Right_ , she thinks, he did offer her 10,000, didn’t he? Which is… crazy, _so crazy_. Small-dicked or not, he must have a big pocket to drop five hundred on some small-time cam-girl just cause he’s _bored._

 _Time to move the show along_ , she thinks, licking her lips, pushing away a little thread of disappointment that she gets a moment, a flicker of genuine attraction to a guy for the first time in forever and he’s just another guy through a screen…just a _username_ , really. _LXXK_.

“Well, what do you want to see for your five hundred then?”

He looks at her, a flicker of a crease between his brows, like he’s trying to understand the shift in conversation and comes up to the same spot she is.

_Chatroom, private show, cam-girl._

It’s another long moment before he says anything, but his eyes sink over her in a way that makes her a little more aware of her own skin, the sticky feeling still between her legs, the lingering thrum of her orgasm.

“Can you actually take that thing?” he asks, his voice slow and rough and she can’t help but think he’d make a killing on a phone sex line. “Half that offer was pure wanting to call your bluff.”

She laughs, but it’s a rush of air, strung a little tight by his gaze and voice and nods, tightening her hand around the toy, shifting a little lower in the seat, letting her skirt slip a little higher up her thighs.

“Maybe.” she splays her legs a little wider, knee rising and falling playfully, socks skewed. He’s attracted to her, that much is obvious, he follows the movement, eyes on the barely visible white of her underwear, clinging wetly to her cunt. “Want to see me try?”

He smiles, crooked and entertained by her, his eyes flicking back up to her face. “Oh, I definitely do, is it the big—”

A phone rings, interrupting him midsentence, LX looks away.

Chloe thinks, _shit—_

She hears the edges of a growled-out _fuck—_ Just as his hand comes up to shut the laptop screen as turns towards the side table.

“God-fucking- _damnit_ ,” she curses, and chucks the toy against the wall, cursing herself for not taking, safe, predictable, divorced dad when she had the chance.

“What a _waste_ ,” she huffs, debating signing back in to the other chatroom, but that would look desperate or like she can’t handle herself and that just leads to men thinking she gives it up quick and cheap. “Fuck.”

Chloe grabs a post-show swig of tequila, head falling back against the chairback, knocking it once, twice—

Her computer pings, a payment notification. _Payment received from LXXK for 10000._

Chloe blinks and clicks on the message. But there’s no message, his username sitting at _offline_ , just the payment.

“What—” she breathes, “—the _fuck_.”


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

two

* * *

The week after LXXK’s mysterious appearance and disappearance, Chloe does two more shows, longer public ones before spending time focused on her regulars just to make sure she doesn’t lose their interest.

Dave tips her a little more than usual the next show, looking a little hurt that Chloe hadn’t picked him for the last private show until she tells him it didn’t happen, lies and says the other guy was a creep and she _should have known better, really. You’re the nicest guy, Dave._

Chloe won’t say she doesn’t think about LX, won’t say she and Kayla haven’t laughed over a splurged pint of ice cream while spinning wild stories about the ‘ _Hobbyist_ ’, because he _has to be_ , she decides, to be so comfortable paying her that much for a fucking _conversation_.

But she also won’t say she hasn’t looked for him in the lists every time she’s logged on.

But LX doesn’t return. At least not to her room.

She isn’t sure if she’s disappointed or not.

“You said thirteen last week!” Chloe spits, bites her tongue, glaring at the bulky man leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, his shaved head shining in the overhead hall light, making the tilt of his smile something cruel rather than humoured.

“And now I’m saying fifteen, girl.” Her landlord shifts off the doorframe, stepping into the apartment his tattooed-arm coming up, his hand reaching out to touch a piece of her hair, fallen loose from her ponytail and brushing her cheek. Chloe smacks it away, taking a step away from him and back into her apartment. All she can smell is cigarettes and cheap cologne.

“You can’t do that,” Chloe forces out, her heart rate ticking up. “You can’t just change—”

“I can do whatever I want,” he shrugs, his hand spreading on the door, just above Chloe’s white-knuckled grip. “I own this building, and like I tell everyone else: you don’t like it, you know where the door is. Good luck finding another place ‘round here for this price.”

Chloe swallows, trying to breathe through her anger and upset... knowing he’s right. Short of them going back to a cramped one-bedroom, they were here for a reason, just like everyone else. She and Kayla spent weeks looking for other options after they met Lackley, trying to find alternatives, but eventually, they realised that any place they found that was cheaper or even the same price, was just farther away, and that meant more money and time wasted getting back into the city.

Or, she thinks, more importantly than any of that... new places, nicer places meant better landlords, more checks into a background that Chloe couldn't pass, fake ID, fake age, fake name... there's a reason they're here.

It lives with her and Kayla everyday, haunting their steps and every decision they've made since... since they left.

“I don’t have that right now,” she glares, latching onto her anger instead of her panic and worry over money and that creepy, wanting look that Lackley gives her. His hand pushes harder against the door, making Chloe stumble and glare, her skin prickling as he looks into the apartment. “I need a few days.”

He peers around like he’s looking for something. Or someone.

“What, your friend ain’t got a couple hundred stashed away either?”

Chloe shakes her head, teeth grinding, a cold little bit of fear crawling up her spine when she realises she’s alone.

She’s never really been alone with him.

“She’s—” _at school,_ she thinks, _not here._ “Studying in her room. I’ll get your money, Mister Lackley, I just need a few days.”

He grunts, leaning back against the doorframe, arms crossing again as his head tilts, tongue sliding out to lick his bottom lip. “You know I told you to cal—”

His name is Mark, she knows. He’d told it before. _As sweet as hearing you call me Mister Lackley is, sweetcheeks, the name’s Mark._

“You’ll have it by Friday,” Chloe interrupts, not wanting to hear whatever innuendo he’s going to make. “Now I gotta go to work, so unless you don’t want your money…” she eyes the hallway, waiting.

Lackley snorts, but shifts up from the doorframe and turns to go without another word.

> _K: Fucking asshole! I have that assignment due, I was planning on taking a few days off to focus on it but I’ll see if there're any pick-ups at the club_
> 
> _C: I know, don’t worry, I can cover it._
> 
> _K: No, no. I’ll see if there’s anything._
> 
> _C: I got it, kay. Don’t worry. Do your assignment. I’ll just do a few more shows this week._

Chloe shuffles through her drawers, looking for the matching scrap of black lace that goes with the underwear already in her hand. Shivering in the chill of the apartment, the music already banging against her wall.

She can’t even complain, it’s not the neighbours’ fault that Chloe’s ‘work’ mostly happens at night and in her bedroom.

She doesn’t own much lingerie, most of it cheap, scraps of fabric that aren't as provocative as they could be or don’t leave much to the imagination. But that’s the point, really, so she goes with it.

When she’d first started to look into the _idea_ of camming, she'd thought it would be easy enough to turn on a camera, rub one out and sign back off. _Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am._

But, she’d flipped through website after website and camgirl after camgirl and if one thing had become clear the longer she looked, it was that these girls weren’t offering _sex_ , or they weren’t just offering sex…but _company._

Sure there were plenty of girls just getting off, or couples even, just filming themselves to be watched... but a lot of them... they chatted and laughed and smiled— and it wasn’t like she thought, it wasn’t just a camera set up to watch some girl play with herself, but rather an imitation of connection. A moment where the camera wasn’t really there and the girl wasn’t just looking at a thousand screennames and faceless, voiceless men, but was there to interact with you. To give you a glimpse into her life and let you know her.

For however much of _her_ was real when the camera was on.

(Which, Chloe knows now, isn’t all that much.)

But still, the top girls spent hours in front of their cameras, opened their lives to the men looking for a connection to a kind of girl they didn’t think they could ever touch in real life. Or, she thinks, men looking to live out a little fantasy, something they’d never _ask_ anyone for in real life.

She knows that it matters to a lot of them, men like Dave who just want to feel wanted for a little while… and this, _this_ had been the hardest part for her, to not feel guilty, to not feel like she was manipulating their emotions just to slip her hand into their pockets. It had taken her some time to understand that she wasn’t offering anything all that different than any waitress, stripper, bartender…

Money changes hands, smiles come out, services get rendered.

Sometimes she thought about falling more one way or the other, but she didn’t have the resources for the variety needed in the shows that were just about a girl getting off, didn’t have the kind of life that she could film like the top girls who have Snapchat and daily vlogs, their apartments something Chloe can barely even dream of.

Not even just their apartments, but their cameras and outfits and _lives._

There was one girl who Chloe spoke to, who told her that she did it because she was _good at it,_ because the money was good and she _enjoyed_ it. She hadn’t needed to do it anymore, had made and saved money for long enough that she didn’t _need_ to do it, but she _liked it_ , she’d said, _so why not keep going?_

Chloe isn’t so sure she’ll ever reach a point where she’d want to keep doing this, but for now, it pays better than anything else she can find without taking too much of a risk getting caught in the lie her name and age are.

She eyes the little black and white gift bag on her bed, reaching out for it and pulling the little bundle out from inside. It crinkles when she sets it on the bed, opens the tissue wrapping, touching the soft fabric, eyeing the soft pink of it; she saw it in a window display of a shop downtown and had, in a moment of weakness, in a moment of giddiness just after that five hundred she hadn’t really earned, gone into that little boutique and fiddled with the price tag on the scrap of lace and thin, see-through fabric, her teeth in her lip and had thought _fuck it_ , _I deserve something nice, don’t I?_

Now, of course, she eyes the pretty lace set and knows it was wasteful, nothing more than a bit of fabric that could have paid for groceries… or helped pay for that fucking rent increase.

Irritated, she stuffs it back into the bag and pulls on the older, plain black set, an itchy cheap fabric that’s seen too many washes with cheap shampoo.

But, she’s not a top-girl, she doesn’t need to have a new set every show. Doesn’t need a new toy or story to draw them in.

She’ll stick with her few regulars and itchy lace, but there’s always got to be a little bit of a show, and the music next door is louder than normal, so Chloe apologises to Kayla, whose head is buried in her school books and turns on her own music, flicking through playlists until she finds something slow but bass-heavy, soft but…sexy.

She plays it loud enough to just hide the music beating against the wall and sets up her camera to show herself in the proper lighting and angles, watching herself as she angles it and fiddles with it to make sure it shows enough, but not just how small her room is.

It isn’t really about her or her life, anyway, she reasons. It’s about a smile, a connection, a service rendered.

They don’t need to know her life to get any of that.

So, she signs in and starts the show.

It’s awkward. It’s weird. Sometimes it takes everything in her not to react.

_Touch that little pussy for me, little girl. Let me see you take it. I bet you loved to be stuffed full of cock, don’t you? Bet you’d let me—_

_Choke you on it._

_Cum on those cute little tits._

_Fuck you till you cry._

Her thighs tremble over the sides of the chair, her little bullet vibrating on her clit through her underwear, stuck to her cunt with arousal— Chloe smiles, biting her lip, half-faking a moan, twisting it a little higher, a little more wanting than she actually feels.

There’s a ping of a noise just as she's sliding the little pink bullet over her the edge of her underwear and on to her mound, dragging a little slickness up over her skin.

_LXXK sent a PM_

Chloe tilts her head into the chair, trying to hide the hitch of her breathing, scraping her teeth over her lip and shifting in the chair to reach for her mouse.

_Thegambit: take off the panties_

_Pngeee: can you squirt_

_Mastersixtee9: u got a daddy to tie you up?Make u cum?_

She smiles until her dimples show and laughs out, breathy and warm: “No Daddy,” she fakes a pout. “But maybe one of you…” she trails off.

She watches the replies roll in for only a second clicking into the PM and hoping her face doesn’t give away her focus on his appearance in her chat.

> _LXXK: Make it private_

It’s not even a _question_ , she thinks, trying to keep her face schooled, her eyes flicking to the camera like she can see him there, watching her. But it's just the chat and herself, her chest moving a little too quick from the echoing feelings of the slow buzz of the bullet leaving her flushed and wet and ready to get off.

She ignores his message because there’s a way to do things and he might not know them, but Chloe _does_ and she can’t just… just ignore her whole chat because he wants her to go private right away.

Besides, it’s been over a week, he can’t just show up whenever he wants and expect preferential treatment. She has a reputation, regulars, fucking _fanbase_ or whatever you want to call them, to maintain.

But another PM pops up, just as she’s leaning back in her chair, telling the chat she’s opening the private show…letting her bra strap fall a little lower, the pink peak of her nipple teasing beneath the edges of the lace bralette.

> LXXK _: I’ll make it more worth your while than any of these cheap fucks in here._

She thinks about the 10,000 tokens, _500 dollars,_ twice what she’s ever gotten in a private show tip before.

 _Shit,_ she mutters before pouting into the camera and telling the men watching she’ll see them all next time, and ignoring the few irritated messages that pop up before she clicks into a private show with LXXK.

The camera comes to life and he’s there, just as attractive as before, a bit less stubble on his jaw than last time, his hair a bit more styled. Wearing a white button-up shirt and sitting in what looks like a dark leather chair in front of something black...or, she thinks that it might be a window, a glimmer of city lights— _Like an office,_ she thinks and wonders if he’s looking up cam-girls at his job.

Wouldn’t be the first time she’s had that happen.

She watches him reach for a drink, something clear this time, still chilled with ice that clinks against the short glass as he takes a mouthful.

“You know,” he drawls with a voice rough with alcohol. “I’m pretty sure I’ve said some of that shit to women and now I’m fuckin’ hoping it wasn’t as godawful as watching them type that shit.”

Chloe breathes a laugh, leaning back in her chair, letting her head loll a little against the seatback, knowing her cheeks are flushed, her lips swollen from her own teeth; in the little image of herself on the screen, she thinks she looks wanting, ready for more, and she tucks her fingers just under the waist of her underwear, her little bullet off but still visible beneath her hand.

His eyes track the movement; she watches him and wonders if he got more attractive or she just… blocked the reality of him from her memory.

 _Maybe it’s the button-up, businessman look,_ she thinks, it’s not something she gets to see— like _ever_. It’s more t-shirts, tank-tops, shirtless men with one hand out of view, rather than men sipping alcohol out of crystal glasses and looking like they’re two minutes out of some business merger.

“You like telling a girl you wanna come on her tits?”

He snorts. “What was it? Cute little tits?” his eyes dart down, Chloe feels something warm spill through her stomach when his eyes are slow to lift and meet hers again. “Don’t think I’ve ever said that one to a woman. Telling her to choke on my cock? Definitely. Fuck her till she begs... yeah.”

He pauses, Chloe tries desperately not to squirm under his gaze, _whose show is this?_ she wonders, _do something Clo, do something—_

“You’d make me choke on it, huh?”

“Sweetheart,” he drawls with his lips tilting into a smirk that makes her insides trip. “My cock wouldn’t fit in your _mouth_ , let alone your fuckin’ throat.”

Chloe’s pretty sure her cunt just clenched around nothing. “I bet I could do it,” she says slowly, swallowing her nerves and her arousal that is absolutely working against her, who knew being genuinely turned on would make this job fucking _harder_?

Not Chloe, that’s for sure.

“You’d teach me, wouldn’t you? I’m a real good student. Promise.”

He huffs a low breath that’s almost a laugh, his smirk growing into a crooked, disbelieving smile and he looks away from her, shaking his head a little before scraping his tongue over his teeth. “Is that right?”

Chloe nods, biting her bottom lip and blinking at him. _Take that asshole, you might be hot but I got moves too._

“You’d let me take my time? Until I could get it all down?”

He shifts, she watches his Adam’s apple shift. “Jesus.” He reaches for his drink, his eyes on her while he lifts it, takes a too-large mouthful before setting the glass back down. “You know, I’ve been thinking about you and that fucking pink toy all week.”

Chloe bites her cheek, but the words trip out anyway. “Thank you— I mean— thanks for sending that tip even though… I mean, you didn’t get a show.”

He shrugs. “I was entertained, thought that was the point of this, right?”

“You really never done this before, huh?”

“No. Not really my thing. I told you that.”

“Why—” she winces, it’s not her business but she _is_ curious about him, a little itch in her insides that shouldn’t be there. Hobbyist or not, it’s obvious he doesn’t use chatrooms much. Looking like him, why would he need to?

 _Please have a small dick,_ she thinks, _it’s only fair._

How many guys have told her how big they are? how much they’d like to stuff her full? But then, with their hand moving on their cock, watching Chloe get off, they’d not exactly been _hung._

“Why am I here?” he asks with a crooked smile. He shifts in his seat, tilting one arm up behind his head and leaning back more. At ease and so fucking confident that it’s somehow a turn-on all on its own.

 _What the fuck,_ she thinks and tries not to look at the flex of his arm, the thick muscles beneath the white shirt. The way it rolls over a thick forearm. “Apparently this shit’s a growing industry. My… family is into a wide range of business ventures. One of them thought getting into this industry was a solid investment. I wasn’t sure. He sent me some sites…”

So, he was bored and alone, then. And Chloe was what? A random click of the mouse?

He snorts. “And you— well, like you said, school girl brings ‘em in, huh?”

Chloe laughs, she can’t help it. “It really does… want me to put it on?”

He hesitates, she sees it, but he smiles and shakes his head. “Don’t think I want to put more clothes on you, right at this moment.”

Looking down at herself, in the skimpy black lace, with black knee-highs, she can’t argue his reasoning. It’s more than he saw last time.

“Stand up for me, sweetheart.”

Biting her cheek, Chloe does, her insides twisting at his voice, or his eyes or just… just _him._ She tries to latch onto her role, to _Clover_ , to not being Chloe in this moment, but she isn’t sure she manages it.

“Turn,” he says and Chloe does, turning slowly in place, she’s done this before too, naked and uncomfortable but pretending otherwise.

She isn’t sure if she’s uncomfortable right now. She feels… _caught. Strung-tight.  
_

When she’s done, she sinks back into the chair, waiting; his eyes are flick to hers and she watches him take another drink, still at ease in his chair, looking… in control, she thinks, _superior, untouchable._

She wonders what it would take to provoke him, mess him up until he’s the one with twisted-up insides and an achy feeling that has nothing to do with the lingering effects of a toy but rather the images in her head, which are more about his hands or his mouth or—

_My cock wouldn’t fit in your mouth._

_God,_ she thinks, this is so much easier when she isn’t attracted to the person on the screen.

His eyes are _heavy._

“I’m going to tell you what to do, but if you don’t want to do something, you can say so.”

Chloe swallows. And nods.

“Put the toy in your underwear and turn it on.”

Biting her cheek and moving slowly, because it’s _her_ show, isn’t it? Chloe moves her hand slowly over her stomach, the bullet vibrates lowly when she flicks it on, the tips of her fingers sinking under the edge of her underwear, lower until her hand stretches the lace and the toy slides between her sticky, still damp lips and—

“No,” he says, his voice low and firm. “Just in your underwear.”

Chloe glances at him, her chest shifting as her heart rate picks up, half from the feeling of the toy and half of it… half of it just because of his voice. She pushes out her bottom lip a little, it’s not as fake as she thinks it should be, when her voice comes out a little more needy than she thinks it should. “You don’t want me to come for you?”

“You will.” His lips twitch. “Eventually.”

Pulling in a steadying breath, because _Jesus—_ Chloe eases the toy back a bit, leaving it resting, vibrating just against her cunt before slipping her hand out of her underwear, her fingers sticky and a bit shiny in the light of the screen.

She likes the way his eyes track them on her skin when they lazily brush against her stomach, before his gaze shifts lower, looking at the little bulge of her bullet beneath her underwear. The low buzz of the toy in the quiet, no clinking coins or tips or pinging messages to hide it.

The toy buzzes against her, but it’s somehow completely different than any other time she’s teased herself with it through her underwear or around her cunt, up over her mound to show someone how wet she is after coming.

Her legs aren’t spread enough, the toy is a tease of getting off, but it makes her pulse race, her body stringing tighter with the _idea_ of it, rather than the reality of it not being enough to actually make her come.

“How often do you do this?”

She blinks, tongue darting out to wet her lips, trying not to twitch into the toy. “A few times a week.”

“You make good money?”

Her hips twitch, her hand tightening on the arm of the chair, the toy keeps vibrating, resting just off of where she wants it. It’s distracting.

He wants to _talk? Right now, really?_

“I do okay. Not as much as the top girls, but—” she exhales, her hips rolling. “I-I’m not sure I want to.”

“Sit back, spread your legs,” he says and Chloe goes willingly, sighing a little when the width of her legs drags her underwear tighter, the toy a little harder into her, into the slick already sticky, making it slide a little against her. She’s pretty sure her eyes flutter, distantly, she thinks she should tease herself more often, it feels _good_ in this anticipatory way that makes her skin flush and her body heat up even though the bullet is still not quite where she wants it.

“Why not?”

She blinks at him, trying to remember what they were talking about. _Money, top-girls._ “Uhm, there’s a lot of upfront costs. Toys, outfits…lights, camera, action, you know?” She tries to smile, but it’s weak and breathless, she’s distracted by the bullet, vibrating just beneath her clit. “Can I—”

“No. Do you enjoy it?”

She somehow knows he doesn’t mean this, right now, but camming in general. She shrugs, her hips twitching, fingers tightening on the arms of the chair. “Love it.”

It’s a lie, but he doesn’t have to know that. That’s not part of the image.

His eyes narrow, looking at her; Chloe feels... exposed. Even though she's wearing more clothes than she has for a lot of men.

“Sit straight. Knees together like a good girl.”

Her mind trips at that, the low, almost rough way he says _good girl,_ leaves her thinking about him saying it rougher, saying it harder, his hands on her, twisted in her hair maybe, keeping her where he wants her. _Good Girl, Chloe._

 _Clover,_ she thinks, _Clover._

When she shifts forward, the toy presses right up against her, it makes her spine straighten and liquefy all at once. When she presses her knees together, she can’t help the moan that trips out of her, breathy and wanting, her hips rolling, grinding against the chair and the toy, held tight against her.

She braces her hands on her knees, nails digging into her skin. She hears him say, “Open your eyes, pretty girl.”

And its another second before she realises all she’s doing is squirming against a chair on camera.

 _Jesus,_ she thinks, _Hobbyist knows what he’s doing._

“You do this a lot?” she asks and hates how weak her voice sounds, caught in breathlessness, trembling at the vibration between her legs. “Escorts getting shown a good time, huh?”

He grins a little, she hates he looks so composed and she’s… itching to come, to touch herself, to sink her fingers into her underwear and inside herself.

“You jealous?”

 _No,_ she thinks, while some small part of her whispers _yes._ She shakes her head, biting her cheek as the heat inside of grows, the bullet sliding every time she rolls her hips, slick and hot and vibrating against her clit on every twitch of her body.

“Knees apart.”

“Fuck off,” she chokes out. “No way.”

He laughs then, and she has to force her eyes open again, watching him take a mouthful of his drink, but his eyes never leaving her. “I’d pay an obscene amount of money to spank you right now. Spread your knees. You’ll like it.”

Chloe shakes her head, leaning forward a little more, hips rolling because she’s right there, she thinks, _right there._

“Look at me." He says firmly and his voice makes her whole body _listen._ "Spread your knees, baby. I promise you’ll enjoy it.”

With a noise in her throat that’s frustrated and whiny, Chloe does, shifting straighter and spreading her knees. And even though it leaves her aching, whimpering, twitching against nothing—it’s fucking _thrilling_ watching his eyes sink down to the spread of her legs and the shine of her arousal, slick and shiny on the inside of her thighs.

The bullet buzzes, vibrates, makes her teeth clench, slippery and not tight enough against her clit to get the same sort of feeling back, but it keeps her on that edge, keeps her pinned and desperate and she _hates_ it—

She likes the way he looks at her, like the way his jaw ticks. His chest shifting with a breath.

It’s… something.

There’s a noise on his side of the screen, a voice saying a name she doesn’t catch— he looks away, his head turning to the sound and something angry crosses his face just before he curses beneath his breath and scrubs a hand over his jaw, his eyes flicking back to her.

Chloe thinks, _No, don’t_ —

The video cuts off.

Chloe curses, pushing up on weak legs and dropping belly-down onto her bed. She snakes her hand beneath her body, rolling her cunt against her palm, the bullet buzzing right against her clit. Burying her moan into her pillow, her orgasm is fast and hot, spilling through her body, spine-tingling in all the good ways it can be…but when she comes down, when it’s just her own breathing and her sticky fingers, she’s left feeling cold and—

And for the first time in a long time, _alone_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we'll get to more of the main plot line, sorry for the two teasing chapters, I like a little introduction before diving right into things. :)
> 
> Let me know if you're enjoying it, comments make my life and definitely push me to write faster :)


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

three

* * *

Chloe wakes up slowly, stretching out on her bed and feeling the sticky damp of her underwear; she’s cold and groggy, her computer tinting everything a faint, electric-blue glow as she blinks heavily into the quiet.

The memories come back, like the glow of the screen sends her right back to the moment; him watching her through the camera, her bullet buzzing, his eyes and voice—

She rolls over, grumpy and exhausted and cold. Sitting up, she runs her hands through her hair, pushing out a breath before pushing to her feet. She strips lazily, pulling a face at the feeling of her underwear on her sticky inner thighs, toeing and kicking the little bit of lace into the corner of her room near her laundry hamper to deal with later.

Shivering, she pulls on a pair of sweats and a hoodie, tugging up the hood and hugging herself as she moves to her laptop to shut it off.

Touching the trackpad, she drags her finger towards the menu, when she realises that she’s still logged on to the cam-site and she’s only been asleep for a few hours. Messages are blinking in her inbox on the screen, waiting for her to click on them.

 _Dstriker75—_ Hey, Clara, hope you had a good night—

_Devildoll— Hey, Clover, any interest in a team-up—_

_LXXK sent you a tip! Click here for—_

And sure enough, when she clicks on her notifications, there it is, sitting bold and bright, **_10,000 tokens received from user LXXK._**

Chloe blinks, and for a second she isn’t sure how she feels about it. Relief, irritation, anger.

She inches her finger down to the menu, shutting off her laptop before shutting the screen and heading into the dim, narrow hallway, lit only by the constant glow of New York that creeps in from the living room windows. Slipping into the bathroom, she squints into the off-yellow light, brushes her teeth and scrubs at her face with lukewarm water.

Back in her room, with minty breath, she curls up beneath her covers and hugs her knees to her chest.

Five-hundred dollars.

_Open your eyes, pretty girl._

_I promise you’ll enjoy it._

Blowing out a breath, Chloe closes her eyes and wraps herself tighter beneath her blankets, trying to block out her thoughts.

She isn’t sure why she isn’t happier getting that five-hundred, it should be— it _is_ a relief, but there’s something unsettled and upset in her stomach, something that hinges on the notification, on the money just being… given. No message. No words. Just… _nothing_.

 _Transactional_.

 _Because it was,_ she tells herself, a _transaction_. A service rendered; a job performed.

_Lights, camera, action._

The week trudges by, fall settles over the city in colder nights and rainier days. The trees dropping leaves until there are more skittering and swirling over the sidewalk than clinging to the branches. 

Chloe trudges to work, kicking a skittering leaf and ignoring the _hey, girl_ some guy leaning against a corner store sends her way.

She’s _tired._ And it might just be that it’s dark so early now, or that it’s colder which means the apartment won’t ever really feel warm, or it might be that every show since—

 _No,_ she thinks, it’s the cold.

That night it's a little cat costume, cat-eye makeup and pinked-up cheeks with pink blush, a little bell on a collar around her neck that jingles every time she moves. 

LXXK doesn’t show and Chloe thinks she might be a little relieved… even if she does spend half the show watching the usernames, looking for those four letters.

It’s easier, she tells herself, when she can separate herself from the moment. When she’s just Clover, just a girl on screen smiling and acting and playing a part. When the moans are fake and the wants are forced and the orgasms are just… a peak her body reaches because of her fingers or a toy.

She doesn’t enjoy it. She doesn’t not. It’s just a job.

Chloe yawns, trudging up the steps of her apartment building; fighting off the chill in her bones, her hoodie soaked, the coffee smell on her clothes hides come of the worst smells in the stairwell, cigarettes and food from different apartments mingling together, something stale beneath that that she’s sure is just the apartment itself.

She knocks on Lackley’s door, the cash folded and tucked into a creased-up envelope, pulled out of the atm in twenties and fifties, stuffed into her hoodie pocket as she dashed back in the rain still pouring down over New York.

Lackley cracks the door, his lips creeping up into a smirk when he sees her; opening it more he leans against the frame, crossing his arms. Old tattoos shifting on his skin; the arms of his shirt cut-off, showing off muscles softened by age and a bit of excess weight.

She imagines, at some point in the past, he was an attractive guy; she bets he was king-shit of his high school, a ladies man who thought he’d have it all and he’s still clinging on to that image, thinking he’s some alpha male, making girls wet in ripped-off, sleeveless flannel shirts and faded tattoos.

“Doll,” he drawls, looking over her in that familiar, irritating way that some men do, more than just checking you out, more like they’re imagining you naked and kneeling for them. “Got something for me?”

Chloe shoves the damp envelope at him, scowling. “Your two hundred.”

“Two?” he frowns. “Nah girl, rent is thirteen, remember?”

“I already— we paid you the eleven last week.”

He frowns, his head tilting, faking confusion, his smirk twitching back up as he looks at her. “Nah, don’t think you did.”

“Yes, we _did_! Same time we do every month, you assh—”

“Hey now,” he frowns, his hand planting on the door frame as he straightens, looming in the doorway. Using his height and once-impressive muscles to intimidate her. “Watch your mouth. Think I’d remember if you paid me. Now you got two hundred, but I still need the other eleven… or,” he steps back, holding his door open, the offer clear, lying in the dull sound of his television in his apartment, the open doorway, the stale cigarette smell and his eyes, sinking over her. “We could figure something out, you and me.”

“Not on your _life,_ ” Chloe sneers, turning on her heel but his voice stops her, low and heavy with something cruel.

“I liked that collar, kitten, next time I can give you some milk to go with it.”

Her sneaker scrapes the step, she almost stumbles, her hand gripping the railing, glancing back at him. “ _What_?”

He smirks, leaning against his doorway. “How d’you think…what’s that site called? Flirt? Yeah, I think that’s the one, isn’t it? How’d you think they’d react, knowing how old you really are?”

“I have no idea what the fuck—”

“You think I haven’t seen fake ID’s, girl?” he snorts. “C’mon. You seen this place?”

Chloe bites her cheek, staring at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know what you think— but you’re wrong.”

“Am I? I’m willing to bet I’m not.” He smiles, his tongue scraping over his teeth. “What’s your friend call you? Clo? Not quite Clara, huh?”

Chloe swallows. “Fuck you.”

He laughs, smoky and rough. “That’s the fuckin’ idea, girl. What you say?”

“I say _no_ , asshole. Not on your _fucking_ _life_ —”

He shrugs, his smile fading as he steps away from his doorframe. “Then I want that eleven hundred by the Sunday, been trying to fix this place up some, you get me? You know where I’m at. Your choice, _Chloe_.”

His eyes stay on hers until he turns, the door slamming shut behind him, leaving Chloe standing in the hallway with her heart in her throat, staring at his door, feeling half-numb and half like she might throw up.

Fighting the numb-tipped panic, she makes her way back to her apartment, feeling disconnected, shivering, his words ringing in her ears.

Her key scrapes her lock, the hollow sound of the bolt sliding, the door opening and clicking shut behind her. The slightly cinnamon and vanilla smell to their apartment, a few cheap candles and scent sticks, they buy to hide the stale smell of the old building that always seems to linger, stuck in the cheap floors and the off-white walls.

Toeing off her sneakers, Chloe moves down the hall, hesitating outside of Kayla’s door, her hand raised to knock, the words ringing in her head—

_Lackley knows about me, Kay. I don’t know how— What are we going to do— How the fuck does he know about— How could he know— How—_

Chloe turns on her heel and slips into her own room, sinking down onto her bed and hugging her knees, still shivering, her hair damp and soaking into her pillow.

They don’t have enough money squirrelled away to move, and even if they could, where would they go? A shelter for a few days? Back to a one-bedroom, somewhere cheaper and smaller until they can figure something out? Kayla stills needs to focus on school, she’s so close… and her job… _both_ their jobs…

 _Fuck,_ she thinks, _what the fuck am I gonna do?_

_How the hell does Lackley know anything?_

Her shift drags by, made worse by the fact that she got barely any sleep the night before, too worried about money and Lackley and the idea of her and Kayla’s carefully built life falling apart around them. Her stomach’s been tense all day, a low-grade headache beating behind her temples.

It takes everything she has just to force a smile onto her face whenever a customer walks in.

She spends the rest of the day staring at the clock, thinking about the money she needs, about how the hell he knows what she does in the privacy of her bedroom—

Oh _God,_ she thinks, her stomach churning, has he been _watching_ her?

Has he been one of those guys in her shows, telling her the things they want to do with her— just the way he does in person, with every look that feels slimy and gross and unwanted?

 _God,_ she drops her head into her hands, pulling in even breaths when it really does feel like she might throw up, imagining Lackley watching her, night after night, his hand tugging at his cock, a floor below her.

How the hell does he know about her and Kayla lying about her age? That ID was _perfect_ , they spent so much money on it— it’s gotten past every test they’ve put it through. How the fuck does _Lackley_ know it’s fake?

Her stomach twists tighter, feeling half-sick with worry, Chloe thinks about what she’s going to do, about blackmail, about the twelve she makes an hour making coffee, but the four bucks a minute she makes in private shows, about LXXK saying: _so are escorts, it’s just in a lump sum._

Slipping her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, Chloe thumbs open the link to the escort company that Grace works for, the one she’s had bookmarked for so long, the one she thinks about every time money gets tight or the shower is extra cold…

Scrolling over it and chewing her cheek, her eyes scan the glossy images and descriptions of services for elite—

She exits, thumbing into her messages.

> _C:You free tonight? Want to talk about work._
> 
> _G: I’ll be home after 7, want to come over to mine when you're off shift? I’ll leave a key out._

Chloe tries to ignore the little ache in her chest and throat, looking up at the ceiling and breathing in a slow breath to steady herself.

It’s not pity, she knows, Grace wouldn’t ever _pity_ her, but there’s a kindness there, right from the first time Chloe reached out to her on the cam-site, that’s always left Chloe floundering, unused to people giving without expecting anything back. 

The one camgirl Chloe had reached out to who’d done more than just give her a few tips and tricks before wishing her luck; Grace had messaged her back, video-chatted and had even sent a few viewers her way.

When Grace had eventually made the transition to escorting, she’d been gently pushing Chloe towards switching as well. _The money’s better, the hours are better, and honestly, Clo, the men are better. There’s no talk about cumming on my tits or face or hurting me— or anything like that. Well, unless you agree to that. Or are into it. These guys want a nice girl to get off with, some attention, you know? More than just a body to watch._

Chloe hadn’t been brave enough to ever say yes, or desperate enough? She isn’t sure what the difference is, anymore. Because is it desperate to want more? To not want to scrape by? Camming had filled the gaps just enough to keep her alive, keep a roof over her head with Kayla in their shitty fucking apartment— but now… staring down another thousand and giving up more of her nights to camming, skipping sleep to squeeze in more shows in between her other jobs—

The idea that Lackley might be _watching her—_

She isn’t sure if she can stomach _not_ doing it.

_Make yourself at home, be home at 7 <3 _

_Ps, there’s plenty in the fridge if you’re hungry_

_\--Grace_

Chloe shakes her head, fingering the note on the counter as she leans against the sink…but her stomach growls and she only debates it for a minute before she’s digging through Grace’s fridge and giving in to the lure of fresh fruit and vegetables.

She doesn’t know the last time she’s had anything more than _toast_ , it feels like. Or oatmeal.

Trying to take her time and enjoy it, Chloe settles at the kitchen table, looking over the quiet townhouse and wondering what it’d be like to be able to afford a place like this.

She's been lying for so long, pretending for so long, that she thinks she forgot what it was like, what it _felt like_ , to want something for herself.

She thinks about the pictures in group homes, scribbled houses and families made of cheap-crayon, wishes and hopes and dreams that fade just as quickly as the crayons that made them.

Now, she thinks, her pictures would be scribbled ideas of what it’d be like to live like this… or to be like Grace, to be _given_ a place like this, to be dressed and doted on, kept and cared for, even if it’s all built on money and a contract.

The idea of it settles strangely in her stomach like the oil of the balsamic dressing, tart and sweet and sour all at once.

To have hot showers. Nice clothes. To sleep in a proper bed instead of a futon on the floor. To eat properly, maybe even put on some weight instead of cinching the waist of her jeans whenever rent is due.

K: _Picked up a shift at the club, you okay alone tonight?_

Chloe debates telling Kayla she’s at Grace’s, but she knows that Kayla… isn’t Grace’s biggest fan.

 _It’s not safe,_ she’d argued, any time Grace or escorting has come up. _You’re not even_ legal, _Chloe, we’re already— there’s so much at risk even camming, you want to put yourself in more danger? They can still take you back, you remember? Right up until you're eighteen. They’d break us apart and then what?_

Worrying her cheek, Chloe texts back:

> _I’m good, don’t worry. Gonna do a short show and go to bed early. Long day today._
> 
> _K: k, love you._
> 
> _C: love you too. Be safe._
> 
> _K: always._

The front door opens and Grace comes in on a cold burst of October air and a cheeky smile, her perfect teeth shining. “Chloe! Get that cute butt over here!”

Chloe goes with a laugh, getting swept up in the taller girl’s arms, letting her swing her around with a groan. Her body chilly but her smell sweet and flowery, pressing her cold cheek against Chloe’s.

“Oof, it’s been way too long, babe, how are you?”

 _Good,_ Chloe grins as she stumbles to get her feet under her again, stepping back as Grace plops down onto a bench beside her door, peeling off a pair of red-bottom heels that she can only imagine the cost of. “Peter treating you well, huh?”

Grace grins. “He’s a godsend, I swear. And he’s been in such a great mood lately because there’s some big buyers in town or something,” she fluffs her hand. “I can only pay attention for so long to that stuff, but it’s been like, the best month of my _life._ ”

She grins pushing back up from the bench and peeling off her coat, revealing a sweater dress that shows off every elegant curve that Chloe can only dream about having. One day. “Drink?”

Chloe nods, forcing a smile on her face and following the older girl into her living room.

“You can just try it once,” Grace offers, even though they’ve been talking about her escort company for the last thirty minutes. She takes a sip of her wine, relaxing into the corner of her couch. “No obligations. There’s this night coming up, some business thing Peter’s been talking about for weeks, bunch of big business guys are going to be there, it would be _perfect._ Like, get your face out there, you know what I mean? Or even just test the waters, see if you enjoy it.”

“What would…I mean, what would I have to do?” Chloe asks, leaning against the other end of the couch, the softest throw blanket she’s ever touched on her lap; she can’t even imagine the price of anything in the room.

Grace shrugs. “I’ll talk to Peter, but he’d have no problem bringing you along,” she laughs. “He’s not a creep or anything but he likes to _look,_ you know? He’ll definitely like the idea of both of us there on his arm.”

At Chloe’s hesitation, the other girl laughs. “No, no, not like that. We’re pretty much exclusive right now anyway, well, I mean, other than his wife, of course. But I don’t think they’ve been around each other since like, Easter. Maybe even last Christmas. Only major holidays and funerals,” she giggles, “She might honestly have it better than I do, all the money and no obligations at all. But, I guess that’s what happens when you marry rich and pop out the man’s kids.”

She tries not to react, lifting her own wine and wincing a little at the taste; she isn’t a fan of it, but Grace had popped the bottle and poured her a glass… and it’s not _terrible,_ she thinks, it’s just… Chloe isn’t sure the last time she had anything other than cheap tequila to ease her nerves and loosen her up; alcohol is more of a grudgingly-swallowed medicine than a drink for her at this point.

“What do you think?” Grace asks, her eyes hopeful, leaning forward and grabbing Chloe’s other hand. “No more shithole apartment or creepy shithole landlord. No more cold showers and cheap-ass substitutes for _everything._ ”

Chloe laughs a little tightly, but the eagerness and excitement on Grace’s face makes her nod. “Yeah, okay.”

“Ah, _yes_!” she grins and laughs, gripping at Chloe’s hand. “We’ll kill it, I promise. Get you all dolled up, little miss Clover, and we’ll knock ‘em the fuck out!”

Chloe laughs again, truer this time, easier, getting caught up in the fantasy Grace spins, the one that’s all around her. Nice things, a warm house, the softest throw blanket she’s ever felt.

She can totally do this.

She _can’t_ do this.

Chloe stares at herself in the mirror, smoothing her hand over the silky-smooth dark-green dress that curves over her body in a way she didn’t know clothing could, outside of skin-tight lingerie.

It slides silkily over her skin, strappy and barely there, sitting tighter against her upper body before falling looser over her hips; the neckline dips low and there’s no hiding that she’s not wearing anything underneath, but Grace waves off the idea of nipple pasties or a strapless bra, _you’re supposed to be catching their attention. Besides, this isn’t some public dinner, it’s business._

Chloe thinks she supposed to understand what _business_ means, but she isn’t sure she does. Part of her imagines men around a table, talking contracts and stocks and investments, while another part of her imagines cigars and booze and… contracts and stocks and investments.

Yeah, she really has no idea what business means _._

Grace steps up behind her, her smile wide and honest and excited. “The makeup really adds that extra… kick. You look like a model—”

“Except about a foot too short,” Chloe snorts, looking at herself in the mirror; it’s not a lot of makeup, but there’s a brush of coppery-gold around her eyes, a glitter of sparkly gold on her cheekbones, lashes darkened with mascara, her hair loose but carefully mussed in a ‘just-fucked’ sort of way, loose waves and half-undone curls winding through the length of her hair.

She looks… good, she thinks. _Older._

“Just remember, you bring them in on camera every night, keep them _coming back_ for more. This is so, so much easier than that,” Grace reassures her, fixing the straps on Chloe’s dress so it slips a little lower, showing just a little more of her breasts, the soft swell that doesn’t compare to Grace’s, pushed up and full beneath the cups of her deep-purple dress, but— but she’s right, she thinks, she _can_ bring them in every night.

Her tits do just fine, she thinks.

The doorbell makes her jump, and in the mirror, Grace grins at her, pulling her downstairs. “Time to go!”

Slipping into borrowed, strappy black heels, Chloe pulls on a borrowed mid-thigh, black coat that’s warmer and nicer than anything she’s owned in her life… and thinks that it helps, thinking of everything as something that isn’t quite hers, the separation between Chloe and Clara.

She’s Clara Barton, twenty-one, escort.

There’s a car idling on the curb, pulled up in front of Grace’s townhouse and Chloe slides in behind the other girl into the dark backseat. 

“Hello,” she says to the driver, settling in her seat and trying to find the buckle.

Beside her, Grace snorts and gives a little laugh. “He’s a driver, Clo. You don’t need to greet him.”

“Evening, Miss,” the driver says, his eyes glancing at her in the mirror, a small smile on his face and in his kind eyes, Chloe smiles back. “All buckled up?”

She nods, even as her fingers fumble the buckle. Grace sighs, taking over and then holding her hand. “Relax. This is easy, I already talked to him,” she smiles, squeezing her fingers. “You’re a pretty thing on his arm, nothing more for tonight. Well… unless you want to, you know.”

Chloe glances at the driver, but he’s politely focused on the road. “And he’s really okay with that?”

Grace nods. “Peter and I have our agreement; it works for us. He really is nice, Chloe. A bit of an egoist, but what men aren’t, you know.” She grins, “At least he’s got money to back it up.”

Chloe nods, looking away and fiddling with the wrist-strap of her clutch, trying to slow her heartbeat, to calm her nerves as the car winds through the city and towards the evening ahead.

They pull up to a dark-bricked building, there’s no line up, just two black doors and two bouncers, the word EMPIRE in gold-painted steel lettering above the doors.

The car door opens when they stop completely, and there’s a hand coming into her reach to help her out of the car; the suited-man waits till she’s stepped forward before offering Grace the same. Just as she’s straightening and letting go of the man’s hand, the club doors open and an older man comes out, grinning and headed right towards them. 

He’s attractive enough, she thinks, even carrying a little extra weight, his white button-up just a bit too tight around his middle. But his grin is white and toothy and it makes up for his age, Chloe thinks, there’s a… seemingly honest happiness at seeing her and Grace that makes him more attractive.

“Ah, there they are!” his voice carries over the night, and he steps forward, sweeping Chloe into him, his hand low on her back, kissing her cheek before patting her ass and moving onto Grace, leaving Chloe a little shocked at the happy, if a little over-friendly greeting. “Just the girls I’ve been waiting t’ see!”

He sweeps Grace in the same way he did to Chloe, but he tilts her back, kissing her firmly on the mouth; his hand is decidedly harder on Grace’s ass than the gentle tap Chloe got.

“Beautiful as always, darlin’,” he says as Grace laughs and curls her hand into the lapel of his shirt.

“Had a few?” she asks, before kissing his cheek and pushing him back a little. “Come on, Peter, get us inside, it’s freezing out here.”

He laughs, loud and deep and holds out an arm to Chloe, tilting his head with a wink and a _c'mere_ ; weirdly enjoying his mood, she goes with a laugh, letting him rest his hand on her hip to lead them all inside.

“This,” he says as the bouncers pull open both doors and the warm, darkly lit interior opens in front of them. “Is what any man could hope for, hm? Two beautiful girls on a man’s arm?” He laughs again, Chloe finds herself reluctantly liking his loudness, he seems… weirdly genuine.

“A dream held by any honest man.”

Grace huffs a little laugh, moving towards the coat check and letting Peter peel it off of her. His eyes slide to Chloe and he clucks his tongue at her when her hands go to undo her own coat. “You're next, darlin’ don’t you dare.”

 _Reluctantly charmed,_ for sure.

When her coat is off and handed to the coat-check, Peter curves an arm back around Grace, standing next to where she is, leaning against the coat check’s counter, having stepped back to watch Peter be all proper and chivalrous despite the reality of it all being… well, bought and paid for.

“It’s the southern in him,” she says with a little laugh when she catches Chloe’s eyes.

Peter’s eyes sink over Chloe and he smiles. “Proper introductions?”

“Peter, Clara, Clara, Peter,” Grace says like she knows exactly where he’s looking. “No threesome, mister, I told you.”

He laughs, his head tilting back and taps Grace’s bottom. “Can’t blame a man for thinking it, darlin.’ She’s just as much a pretty little thing as you said, but any younger than you and I’d feel like I was robbin’ the cradle, eh?”

They both laugh and Chloe smiles; itching a little with discomfort because not even Grace knows she’s seventeen, Chloe had only told her that she and Kayla ran away from a foster home after being shuffled around for years— which is true, but just one small piece of their life. Grace had never questioned the fake name since she’d used a fake name when she was camming, too.

Watching them, she can’t help but wonder how much Grace fakes any of this, or if she really does _like_ Peter, allowances, contract, agreements aside… she can’t help but wonder if she genuinely _enjoys_ being with him.

Even knowing he’s married. Three kids, she said. (Chloe’s pretty sure all of them are older than she is.)

“Any heads up before we go in there?”

Peter brushes another kiss over Grace’s cheek, his arm wrapped more around her waist, slipping just beneath the dangerously low back of her dress. “Not a thing, we were just drinkin’ before I came out to collect you and… see what you were offering.”

Grace flicks his shoulder, but she’s smiling. “Careful, or I’ll be worried you’ll get tired of me. Trade me in,” she pouts, but all Peter does is smile, glancing at Chloe again, his hand sinking just a little lower on Grace’s ass.

“You know I like pretty things, darlin’, but…” he gropes her ass and winks. “I’ve got my hands full already.”

Chloe looks away, feeling like she’s intruding, but then Peter’s arm is out and he’s leading all three of them deeper into the lounge.

She isn’t sure what, exactly, she was expecting when Grace told her about the night ahead, but… this— this was not it at all. The club—lounge— bar— _whatever_ it is, is dimly lit, copper lights hanging from the ceiling spilling a soft gold light, tall, thick candles spill more off-gold light, giving everything this soft sort of feeling. She can’t tell if they’re even fake candles or not, but it adds a warmth to the darkness she’s surprised by.

The music is deep and low, smooth and aiming for something that’s like what Chloe plays when she’s camming, sex-tipped lyrics, dripping low lyrics and beats. It’s loud enough to cover the din of conversations around them but not loud enough to make it hard to hear Peter beside her, telling Grace about his son being _round here somewhere_ , _trying to get him more involved, put some more responsibility in him, you know. Enough partyin,’ I think. Thirty now, after all._

_Figured your girl might entertain him a bit, maybe even smarten him up like you did me._

Chloe fights a snort on that one, pressing her lips together because she doesn’t think Peter wants her son dating a seventeen-year-old part-time cam-girl-slash-barista-hostess.

She fights her laugh and schools her face. Smiling at Peter and Grace. “Love to.”

Grace fights a laugh, rolling her eyes a little, mouthing: _be nice._

They enter into the main lounge, the floor sinking a few steps, a matte black and gold bar taking up a chunk of the floor, stairs on either side of it leading to a higher level where she can see, shifting in the low-light, beneath more gold-tinted lights, the shifting bodies of women in various stages of undress, moving slowly to the beats playing over the speakers.

A man comes down the steps from the upper area, he’s tall and lean, dressed in a white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled just a little over the swell of defined biceps, a few inky lines curling over his skin. She thinks he’s just another patron until he walks steadily closer to them and smiles.

“Pops,” he grins and lets Peter tug him into a one-armed hug, Peter thumps him on the back once, his grin just the same as the one on the younger man’s face. He’s attractive enough, Chloe decides, his dark-blond hair gelled but coming loose in strands over his forehead.

 _Can totally fake this_ , she thinks, at least he isn’t in a wife-beater and staring at her with a flexing arm moving up and down on his lap.

His eyes slide over Grace and then to Chloe, his eyes flicking over her from head to toe. When he smirks at her, stepping closer to offer her his hand in greeting, she isn’t sure how she feels about how it looks on his face. It’s definitely a flirting smirk but it borders into something a bit heavier with how he looks down at her. “How much you cost my dad?”

“Carl,” Peter huffs as Chloe’s shoulders tighten. “Don’t be an ass.”

“C’mon I’m just playin’,” he laughs, pulling Chloe closer by her hand and touching her hair, holding a piece between his fingers. His eyes flicking between her face and her hair. “I’m Carl, obviously, and you’re mine for the night, I take it?”

“I’m _Clara_ ,” Chloe lies, looking up at him and fighting the urge to knee him in the groin. “And your dad hasn’t paid yet, so I wouldn’t count on anything until his check clears.”

Peter guffaws and Grace presses her lips together, fighting a smile. Carl grins at her. “Cute, I like it. Nice to meet you, _Clara_.”

“You too,” she lies and lets him turn his handshake into his hand holding onto hers, leading her down the few steps onto the sunken section of floor, where there are sections of large, deep chairs and two-seater couches, each around a low, coffee-like table and a low hanging copper light.

It’s a really strange mix of industrial and comfortable. The building itself is dark and sparse, but the way it’s furnished makes it feel very intimate and warm.

There’s a group of men ahead, already seated, and Carl stops a waiter, just outside of the group and orders some drinks, letting Peter take over the introductions.

He steps back, to let Grace and Chloe slip into the grouping of seats, a soft grey rug beneath her shoes. She’s too focused on not tripping to pay attention to anything until she’s sitting, sinking into the soft, deep couch and trying to focus on looking good while also not flashing everyone already seated as her dress hem is decidedly somewhere between teasing-short and _hey-that’s-an-ass cheek._

She manages it pretty well, she thinks, as Grace settles at her side and Peter beside her, sinking the couch a little as he eases into the seat, his arm curving over them both along the back of the couch.

She looks up, smoothing her hand over her dress on the back of her crossed legs, making sure she isn’t showing anything, scanning the group of men already seated, the woman perched on either side of an older man on one of the single, wide chairs; two middle-aged men sitting on the couch next to him, one with a girl nearly in his lap, his hand resting on her upper inner thigh and the other nursing a cigar while he looks at Chloe and Grace; on the last couch, the one they passed when they walked into their little section of the lounge, there’s a younger man with a sleeve of tattoos that spill over his skin, crawling from his hand all the way up under his black button-up and up his neck. Sitting across from her, he’s dressed in all black, watching them all steadily, one hand in his lap and nursing a drink, slouching a little in the seat, his knees spread, one ankle resting on his other knee.

She follows that dark-trousered knee to the last man, lounging in the last section of couch to the right of her, dressed in all black, from the shine of his leather shoes to buckle of his belt to the buttons on his shirt, undone just enough to tease a well-defined chest beneath the open v.

Her eyes climb higher, over a broad, sharp jaw, dark-stubble that looks cultivated instead of lazy, and—

Peter is saying something, but all Chloe can see is the man sitting across from her, light-eyed, dark-haired, lifting a glass to his lips… his eyes steady and focused on her.

Chloe’s heart stops.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspiration for club: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/de/a5/f6/dea5f6ed63bb45d08c2d77001a4f075c.jpg  
> but bigger and with more defined like, sections of chairs/tables to make groups
> 
> Sorry this was a bit of a boring chapter, but I had to set some stuff up, plot wise, I like a little more p in my pwp ;)
> 
> please let me know if you're enjoying this, it really motivates me to write faster and update more! :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see end notes for a warning if you need to

* * *

four

* * *

Chloe’s heart stops.

It’s him.

It’s _not_ _him_ , she tells herself. _It’s not. You’re seeing things._

_There’s no way._

But she can’t tear her eyes away because it’s the same look that she’s seen through her computer screen, (in her head, over and over, his voice in her ear, _open your eyes, pretty girl._ ) It’s the same eyes, the same jaw, the same long fingers, large hand, lifting a glass to a mouth that says: _I promise you’ll like it._

 _It’s dark,_ she tells herself, _you’re seeing things. There’s no way it’s the same guy._

It’s wishful thinking— no, _no—_ she doesn’t _want_ to see him, she’s not a cam-girl here, she’s Clara, twenty-one, escort. He’s— a voice through a screen, a face, the clink of tokens. Nothing more.

 _Nothing_ more.

But his eyes stay locked on hers and she isn’t sure if she’s even breathing; people are talking around them, she can hear it, a dull, distant buzz, but all she can see are his eyes, the shift of his throat as he swallows, the way his hand looks around the glass. The same broad, sharp jaw, dark stubble, dark hair that’s thick but styled neat and shiny in the glow of the lights hanging above them.

The couch shifts beside her and Chloe startles, tearing her eyes away from him.

Carl drops down onto the couch, his arm going around her shoulders, pressed against her from thigh to hip, his head ducking low to speak in her ear, just loud enough for her and no one else to hear him over the music.

“You’re younger than he normally goes for, you know, I’d be worried if Grace wasn’t here, but he still seems caught up in that one.”

Chloe swallows the desire to move away, it’s sudden and bright and unavoidable, (and she knows it’s all because of the man on the other couch, the reality of this… this fantasy-man she spun bright behind her eyelids, this little, wanting bit of her that’s latched onto the unreal man who made her feel something, _anything,_ more than an act, a play, a _lie_ , in so long.)

She can’t stop the flick of her eyes as she glances at the man sitting on the other couch.

He’s still looking at her. (She feels like she’s back in her room, the bullet buzzing against her clit, his voice—)

She looks away again, shifting in her seat as her stomach tightens and her body flickers warmer at the memory. “He didn’t pick me out, I’m n— I’m Grace’s friend.” She cuts herself off before she can say _I’m not an escort,_ because at this point, she thinks, isn’t she?

This is what this night is, isn’t it?

Guaranteed money, there’s no counting tokens, no watching the clock, no luring guys in for a private show to count down dollars in intervals of four.

A way out of scraping by. A way out of making due. A way out of accepting _just enough._

A way out of Lackley’s tightening, heavy-eyed grip.

She looks over at LXXK again, but his eyes aren’t on her face anymore, he’s looking down… she can’t help but think they’re following Carl’s hand; the way his arm drapes over Chloe’s shoulder, his fingers skimming along her collar bone, over the slinky strap of her dress, brushing along the hem of the silk over her chest, following the way it drapes, sinking down between her breasts.

She tries not to shift away, biting her cheek and telling herself that she can do this. That it’s no different than when she does it alone, teases her own fingers over her skin, along the strap of her bra, _c’mon show us ur tits, clover._

That the man across from her is no more real than her name. A fantasy she indulged in, a little escape from reality.

(He hasn’t said anything. Hasn’t acknowledged her. Hasn’t moved or hinted that he has any _interest_ —)

She glances up at Carl, and his eyes are downcast because there’s not a lot hidden from him with the way they’re sitting; he can see right down her dress, the only thing saving him from seeing all of her is the weight of the silk, sitting softly against the curve of her breast, hiding just enough that it’s more of a tease that a strip show.

When his eyes flick up to hers, he smiles at her, white and toothy. “They’re cute. Smaller than I normally go for, but we can make it work.”

Her spine prickles and she wonders if he thinks he’s charming and smooth, some slick Casanova; one of those guys that think girls like backhanded compliments. That stupid idea that girls _like_ assholes.

_You got small tits but it’s okay. I can get it up anyway._

_Yeah_ , she thinks, _not so much._

Part of her wants to stand up and leave, wants to go back to the camera and the men who are a very safe distance away and can’t actually touch her, but she’s committed to tonight; to climbing out of the hole she’s dug her and Kayla into. To not think about Lackley, her age, the creeping guillotine above her head that’s sharpened with all the things she lies about every day.

“You know what they say,” she says with a forced smile, just as the waiter returns with a tray of drinks. “Good things come in small packages.”

“Guess I’ll be the judge of that, huh?” he says, his smile grows a little and he chuckles before leaning back against the seat a little more, letting his hand linger along the strap of her dress, just brushing lazily over the top of her breast as he takes the offered drink.

Gritting her teeth, Chloe wants to bite back, _no, you won’t. Only if I say so, asshole._ But Grace nudges her, just a little and the words from earlier are in her head again, _you bring them in online, night after night, Clo—_

And she’s supposed to be networking, isn’t she? She doesn’t have to go home with Carl, she doesn’t have to say yes, but she can play the part and flirt and… and get her face out there. (Find a townhouse of her own, a soft throw blanket, a fridge full of fruit and vegetables and toast only when she wants it.)

Slipping more into Clover, because she knows what she looks like, school-skirt or no. _Clover_ is a guy’s little nympho-dream and Chloe knows how to lean into it when she needs to. Even dressed to look older, there’s a softness to her, an unavoidable bit of innocence that brings men in, a little temptation with a dimpled, soft cheek.

Clover’s got a market that Chloe’s learned how to play into.

Bracing her hand on Carl’s upper thigh, she reaches forward a little to take the drink the waiter offers her, leaning over Carl’s lap just enough, her hand just shy of his dick beneath his pants. She plays it off as young and unsteady, pulling her hand back and smiling quickly at him before casting her eyes down.

When she leans back, she fiddles with the little stir-stick with a cherry on it, the ice clinking against the glass as she bites her lip. “Sorry,” she hesitates, glancing up at him. “I just—I’m a little nervous. I haven’t really done something like this before.

Carl, with his drink halfway to his mouth, pauses and looks at her. “Is that a line?”

Chloe shakes her head, taking a sip of her drink and casting her eyes down before looking up at him. “No. Maybe we could just… take it slow?”

He clears his throat and nods, his smile pulling wider, eyes shining with interest when they flick over her again. “I’ll take it as slow as you want, babe. We got all night, after all.”

She smiles, looking down at his lap, feeling his eyes on her she worries the little stir-stick in the pink drink… but she can’t stop her eyes from flicking towards LX.

He’s looking away, talking to Peter, and Chloe’s not… she’s not _disappointed._ Because she’s not here for him. Or with him. And he hasn’t looked at her again, has he?

And he’s… he’s a hobbyist, isn’t he? That’s not what she wants. (A safety net, comfort, a stay of execution. Not a momentary thrill. Not a sharp-jawed, rough-voiced fantasy.)

 _And not an STI,_ she thinks, biting her cheek to keep her smile hidden.

But while Carl fiddles with the strap of her dress, she can’t stop herself from looking at the man who should only exist in the glow of her computer screen.

He’s broad-shouldered and thick, she can see the muscles of his arm, the one stretched out over the back of the couch, lazy and easy as anything, looking like he did on her screen: in control, confident, like nothing in the world can touch him.

He’s… _big_ , she thinks, looking down his body, back down a wide chest, the thick of his waist, the shine of a leather belt, the way his pants gather over his lap—

She tears her eyes away. _Small dick,_ she thinks, _small dick. He has to. God wouldn’t be that mean, would he? Let him look like that and be packing?_

 _Not that it matters,_ she tells herself. That— _that’s_ _dangerous._

She thinks about him on her computer screen, about her…attraction. About how she’d rubbed herself the next day, ( _and the next and the next_ ) her fingers slick on her clit, him in her head, telling her how _good_ she is, her mind spinning it brighter and brighter until his mouth was at her ear, rough and warm, _be a good girl, sweetheart, rub that little clit for me._

Squeezing her thighs, Chloe breathes through the flicker of heat that runs through her body, a throb of it in her cunt.

He’s dangerous.

It’s so much easier to keep herself separate from what she does on camera, or… or in person, now. Carl is… attractive enough, _Peter_ is attractive enough, she thinks, that entertaining them…fucking them, or someone like them, would be tolerable— but _he_ —

He’s dangerous.

She glances over at him again, just from the side, keeping her eyes low, like she’s looking at the table and the open bottle of alcohol already sitting on it.

He doesn’t look her way.

 _Good,_ she tells herself, _maybe he doesn’t recognise me after all._

_Good._

(She’s not _disappointed_ , she tells herself. _Absolutely_ _not_.)

Chloe nurses her second drink, it’s sugary-sweet and she thinks she can already feel that little bit of flushed-looseness that comes with alcohol. There’s a little part of her that just wants to give in to it, to get drunk and let Carl take her home and take whatever cash comes her way in the morning, but…

But she sips her drink instead, because…

Because she isn’t sure if she can do it so easily. No matter what she tells herself about how many times she’s fucked herself, choked herself on a toy, listening to coins and messages and heard the men watching tell her how hot she is, how hard they’re coming… she isn’t sure if she can do _this._

But then she thinks about Lackley, about her ID, about him being one of the men _watching_ her—

And her stomach twists tight as it turns, knotted-up with the idea that she _can’t_ go back to camming, she can’t stomach the idea of Lackley watching her, a floor below, tugging at his cock and knowing exactly where she is and how easy he can get at her.

It’s blackmail, she knows it is. But he’s got all the fucking cards and Chloe’s got…

Her body.

Distracted by her own thoughts, she only half pays attention to the men talking around her. Something about real estate and properties… but she understands what Grace meant when she said she could only listen to the business talk for so long.

She zones out, sipping at her drink, letting Carl fiddle with the strap of her dress, her hair, his fingers soft on her skin on the back of her neck when he brushes her hair aside and presses a kiss to her neck.

“How much would it cost to see you up there?” Carl asks, low and alcohol-tipped in her ear and when she looks at him, his eyes flick towards the upper floor, where they can just see the shining poles and the girls moving on them, around them, swaying to that heavy, slow beat.

“I’m not…” she starts and then reworks herself, pulling herself out of her head and into the game. Glancing at the upper floor, at the shifting, coloured lights over the shifting bodies of girls before meeting Carl’s eyes. “I’m supposed to be for you tonight, aren’t I? You don’t want to share me, do you?” she asks, with a little hesitation, a little pout in her lip. Like she’s worried he might.

Like she doesn’t perform naked for men a few times a week. Like Kayla hasn’t been dancing for years, like they haven’t learned dances together, making it something more fun than it should have been; just them and cheap tequila and laughter.

His eyes sink over her before he grins at her. “Nah, babe, you’re mine for tonight. Just think it’d be hot to see you up there. If I wanted a stripper, I could have just gotten one of the girls upstairs, yeah?”

She forces out a laugh, like _: of course, Romeo, how silly of me to think anything else._ “We could dance, though. If you want?”

When he pushes up, obviously eager to get away from the business talk going on around them, he holds out his hand and Chloe takes it, letting him hold her steady as she shifts off of the couch and steps away from the group. He says something about dancing and her and the upper floor… she doesn’t look at anyone but Grace, who smiles at her and Chloe smiles back because she’s _fine_ , she’s totally _fine_ , everything tonight will be by her choice.

Fucking is like bike-riding, isn’t it? And sucking dick is probably easier than stretching her mouth around the hardness of her dildo.

If she _wants_ to, anyway. She doesn’t have to do anything; she can take Peter’s money and leave Carl with a promise for more that she can always back out of later.

She glances back at LX _,_ just once, just as Carl leads her towards the upper floor, he doesn’t look at her, but his jaw tightens, a flicker of tension that could be nothing more an irritation at the business she wasn’t paying attention to.

She suddenly wishes she had been listening, just to know if—

 _If nothing_ , she tells herself. _He doesn’t even remember you. Forget it._

The dancefloor is tinted in shades of red and gold and coppery lights; darker and louder than the lower half of the building.

And it’s easier in the dark, in the ear-filling, body-filling music, to let Carl press up against her, to let him grind against her on the small dancefloor. To curl her fingers in the short hair on the nape of his neck and pretend she’s thinking about him and not stuck on the man sitting, careless and cold, a half-floor down from them.

(He flickers through her head like the lights around them, but it’s the glow of her computer screen and her hips rolling against her chair—)

But it’s easier to drift away from that too, to get lost in the music and the movement and pretend it’s just her own hands, (on her stomach, her thigh, the curve of her hip and ass, _it feels so good, I’m so wet, should I touch myself?_ ) putting on a show.

By the time Grace ends up on the dancefloor and pulls her away from Carl with a slow, suggestive smile, Chloe’s managed to convince herself that LX really doesn’t recognize her. That he was just lying. That he’s in chatrooms all the time, or maybe he’s just so much of a hobbyist that one girl on camera blends into the many faces of other women he’s gotten off with, rather than one he just… _watched_ get off on black computer chair through a computer screen.

Just because it’s been in her head for the last two weeks doesn’t mean he’s spared her a fucking thought.

 _But that’s not true_ , her mind whispers, as smooth and warm as the air in the upper floor is, alcohol-tipped and gold-touched by shifting lights. _He told you, didn’t he?_

_Been thinking about you and that fucking toy all week._

A lie, she thinks.

_Why was he looking at you, then?_

_So what,_ she tells herself, _so what._

Hobbyist got game, that’s all. Slick lines and a slick smile he knows how to use.

 _Dangerous_ , she thinks.

“How you doing, Clo?” Grace asks into her ear, both of them moving to the slow-grinding, bass-heavy beat. “Need to tap out or anything? Want me to get Peter to get Carl to back off a bit?”

Chloe shakes her head. “I’m good,” she says and runs her hands over Grace’s arms, up over her shoulders, feeling the other girl’s hands on her hips, soft and warm. She hesitates before leaning closer, hiding their conversation in the length of Grace’s neck. “If I went home with Carl tonight… Not saying I will, or that I’d, you know, fuck him, but… if I did…”

“Would you get more?” Grace finishes for her, her hand curving along Chloe’s lower back, inching her dress up as a tease. “Of course, but I don’t think you should, honestly. Better to drag it out a bit, I think. Just like you do before a private show.”

Chloe nods, and even though she was sure that was going to be her choice, she’s relieved to hear Grace say it. “Yeah, no. Totally.”

“And Carl’s a bit of a dick, I think you could do better. But it’s good to look like you got people interested in you, you know? Show up on some guys arm, get some experience, get some men looking twice… speaking of,” Grace trails off, leaning closer, her breath warm on Chloe’s ear. “We got an audience.”

Chloe glances around, noticing more than a few men looking their way, but it’s the men at the bar that catch her attention. LX is leaning against the matte-black bar top, one hand holding his drink, his head turned towards Peter, tilted closer as he talks to the older man as the music is louder on the upper floor, the bass beat heavier, pulsing around them.

The question slips out before she can stop it.

“Who is that?”

Grace turns her head and Chloe feels her light laugh more than hears it as the taller girl sways with the beat, letting Chloe turn and press her back up against her, rolling her hips back and letting Grace touch her, skimming her hands over Chloe’s curves.

“Oh, I _know_. Hot as fuck, right?” she laughs again, as Chloe hums a little agreement, turning again and feeling Grace’s palm warm in the curve of Chloe’s spine, feeling the way their bodies move together. “Luca Kostin, foreign, wealthy, absolutely _offensively_ -good-looking. I don’t know much more than that, as far as I’ve heard since Peter started doing business with him, he hasn’t used any of the girls I know, but he’s never had the same girl on his arm twice either. He’s sort of…intimidating, don’t you think? I thought about going after him the first time I saw him but… but there’s no way someone like _that_ would sign anything with one girl. Not looking like that. There’s no way.”

A part of Chloe wants to tell Grace that he _has_ , that he’s used Chloe— in some loose definition of the word _use_ — twice.

If watching her get off and not touching himself is _using her._

And then paying her a stupid amount of money for no reason.

 _Twice_.

“I mean, _definitely_ thought about it,” Grace continues, oblivious to Chloe’s thoughts and distraction. “But I like the stability of Peter, old guys are more predictable, you know? That’s what you need, too. Someone who likes having a hot, younger girl on his arm but only wants to fuck occasionally. The younger guys are way more exhausting, trust me.”

“Yeah,” she says slowly, tilting her head into Grace’s neck, but her eyes find LX— Lu _—Kostin_ again. He doesn’t look her way, but she watches his profile from the curve of Grace’s neck, telling herself that Grace is right, older men are more stable, more of a sure, steady thing. Like Dave. Dave was and _is_ way, way easier than _him._ “Yeah.”

But she still watches him at the bar, frowning a little when she sees Peter glance her way, his mouth moving as he says something to Kostin and then laughs, head tilting back with it, clapping the taller man on the shoulder before nodding and grinning, looking pleased as anything.

“Business must be going well,” Grace hums as they watch them shake hands, the older man still grinning.

Kostin tilts his chin towards the lower level, saying something before he straightens out of his lean, downing his drink and walking away without sparing the girls watching, or anyone else, a glance back.

“Probably hear all about it later. Peter can talk for hours, I swear.”

Chloe doesn’t watch him go, but… but her eyes linger on his shoulders, the broad line of them beneath his dark shirt. It’s hard not to, she reasons, as he seems to be a head taller than everyone else around him.

She glances back to Peter, who’s looking across the lounge, his head tilts at someone in a _come here_ motion.

 _Carl_ , she realises, as she follows Peter’s gaze across the room to where his son is sitting in one of the wide, black chairs set closer to where the girls glide and grind against the poles. He’d been with some men closer to his age and Chloe would bet it was who he was with before they showed up.

She knows he’d been watching her dance with Grace, his eyes following their bodies, the hem of Chloe’s dress, the inching climb of it whenever Grace pressed her hand in the small of Chloe’s back…and that’s more in his favour than she can say about someone else who hasn’t looked at her since—

Not that she _cares_.

She watches Carl head over to his father, drink in hand, grinning and leaning up against the bar top; Peter claps him on the shoulder, tilting his head towards the dancefloor before they both glance at Chloe and Grace.

Carl’s brows furrow and he leans closer to his father, arguing about something and shaking his head. Peter looks irritated, his eyebrows sinking together as he insists something, taking hold of Carl’s arm and leaning closer, his face more serious than Chloe thought he could be, for a guy always smiling and teasing.

Carl shrugs off his father’s hand and storms off, leaving Peter exasperated before he shakes his head and grabs the bartender’s attention for another drink.

“That was weird,” Grace says and Chloe frowns, wondering where Carl went and if he was coming back or if not… if she’s free from having to flirt with him the rest of the night. “But then, Carl and him fight all the time, not the first time I’ve seen it. He’ll be back once he cools down, don’t worry. I bet we’re heading out soon anyway, probably hit a quieter lounge somewhere else before calling it a night. It’s usually how these things go.”

Chloe isn’t sure what to think, but with Carl gone and her alcohol buzz fading, she slips out of Grace’s hold and tilts her head towards the bathroom. “Be right back.”

She glances back once, seeing Grace moving towards Peter, his eyes bright and steady on her as she walks towards him.

She isn’t sure if she’s jealous of what Grace has or not, there’s something about it that chafes at her, the contractual aspect of everything… but, but she can’t lie to herself and say she doesn’t want what Grace has, the security, the ease of knowing her role with Peter, the luxury of not worrying about bills or food or… or _anything_.

In the bathroom, running her hands under cool water, Chloe’s glad for the minute of quiet, the music a dull thump on the other side of the doors. She drinks some water from the tap, trying to cool herself down, thinking about how the night might play out… to hold off on Carl if he comes back, go back to Grace’s and see about maybe avoiding signing up for her agency officially until she’s legal, maybe doing more of these events under the table until she is...

(It’s only a few months, she thinks, only a little longer before she can scratch one lie off her ever-growing list.)

Maybe she can herself a Peter instead of a Carl until then. Someone a bit older, like Grace said. Less into strippers and drinking, maybe.

More into stocks and like, _golf._

 _Or cribbage,_ she thinks, biting back a smile and looking at herself in the mirror. Trying to avoid thinking about what Kayla would say, about the risks… forcing herself to focus, to not think about anything other than Lackley and his words.

_You know where I’m at._

With a steadying breath, Chloe slips her phone out of her clutch and texts Kayla a quick goodnight, hating herself for lying but— but Kayla’s already given up so much for her and she’d rather die than uproot what they’ve built for themselves in New York; school and her scholarship, their jobs and a few friends… she’d rather die than let Kayla give it all up, just because Chloe can’t figure out how to handle one asshole landlord who can’t know _anything—_

_‘What’s your friend call you? Clo? Not quite Clara, huh?’_

‘ _You know where I’m at. Your choice,_ _Chloe_ _.’_

Sometimes, sometimes… she wishes she could just erase Chloe, make herself Clara Barton for real. Twenty-one, high-school graduate instead of drop-out. Two parents instead of none. A family home in Kansas or Jersey or Maine. Maybe a dog. A cat. A fucking _parrot._

But she’s not.

(They’re orphans together, she thinks, and that’s always mattered more than any nicely framed story that would make a nice little Hallmark movie, isn’t it?)

Slipping of the bathroom, her eyes slide right to the bar, where she sees Grace and Peter, who lifts his hand when he notices her and calls her over with the same sort of head tilt he sent to Carl.

When she reaches them at the bar, Peter has his arm curved around Grace’s waist, holding her against his side, he grins at Chloe, toothy and white like his son. “Our business is moving somewhere else,” Peter says with a smile. “You alright with that?”

Chloe nods and glances around the people on the upper floor. “Sure. What about Carl?”

Peter snorts and shrugs. “He’ll be along in a bit. Don’t worry about him, darlin.’”

They wait as Peter finishes the end of his drink, Chloe fiddles with the little wrist- strap on her clutch, thinking about Kayla and money and the months until she’s eighteen…scanning the crowd absently, looking for any signs of Carl, or… or _him._ Or even any of the men that were sitting in their group from earlier, but there’s no familiar faces in the crowd.

“Alright, my darlings,” Peter announces, knocking back the last of his drink before lifting his arm towards the stairs with a flourish. “Ladies first.”

Back in the lobby, Chloe lingers near the coat check, letting Peter take the lead, knowing that he’ll will want to play at being the gentleman that he was on the way in.

Distracted, watching Peter grab Grace’s coat from the man behind the counter, she rolls her foot in her heel. Trying to ease the ache in her feet; Grace’s heels a little too big for her, a little higher than anything Chloe’s worn in her life.

(She remembers a pair of kitten heels, given to her by one of the families they stayed with. _Church Shoes,_ the woman had called them, that she was only allowed to wear on Sundays.

No idea where those got off to, though.

They were nothing compared to these, strappy, high-heeled things that make her calves ache… but they do, she’ll admit, make her legs look pretty damn long.

Grace is smiling, saying something into Peter’s ear, her hand easing up his arm… and Chloe wonders again what it would be like, a relationship like that… when she feels someone step up behind her, feels the drape of her borrowed, black coat brushing over her shoulders. Startled, she looks back and then up—

 _He_ looks down at her.

She sucks in a little breath, feeling it catch in her throat. Stuck looking up at him. Stuck to her spot. Her eyes searching his face— but there’s nothing on it, no smile, no hint, no… _nothing._ Just dark hair, dark stubble, grey eyes and—

He’s holding her coat open like he’s… like she’s been _his_ date all evening and they’re leaving together, like he’s _supposed_ to be behind her, waiting for her to slide her arms into the coat because he’s her _date._

Like he didn’t just stare at her once across the span of a couch and then not again all fucking _night_.

And then—

“You know,” he says, and it’s somehow deeper in person, the roll of his voice, the low pitch of it, tilted even lower so it’s just for her to hear. “I’m not sure if I’m offended you lied about being an escort, or insulted that you didn’t let me make an offer.”

For about half a second, Chloe thinks about stomping on his shiny, black leather shoe and _running—_

Or punting him, right in the dick, for _being_ a _dick—_

But then Peter is behind her, laughing out: _the night awaits—_ And LX, Luca, Kostin— _whatever_ his fucking name is— the corner of his lips tilt, just a little, into the smallest sort of smirk and lifts her coat a little higher in his hands.

“Arms in, sweetheart.”

It’s all… automatic, she can’t explain it, feels like she’s floating up and outside of herself, watching herself listen to him, turning away from him, pushing her arms through the coat he holds open for her, letting him settle it on her shoulders, letting him slide his hand underneath her hair trapped in the drape of the coat, his fingers brushing her neck, the shiver in her body, the way all of her sparks to attention at that one, brief point of contact. Just the back of his fingers brushing the nape of her neck, his hand closing around the length of her hair, tugging it gently, firmly up out of where it’s trapped.

She doesn’t think about her fantasy, his hand in her hair and his voice in her ear, _good girl, Chloe—_

She _doesn’t._

Half numb, half stuck in her head, half out of her body, she feels her hair settle along her back, feels his hand slip away, feels it land on her side, and somehow, even though it can’t be, she swears it’s hot all the way through the layers of her coat and dress and down to her skin; she turns to face him, knowing that’s what the touch is, a gentle push, a want for her to turn to face him.

Her heart pounds in her chest, and she’s breathing too quickly because of it, she bites her cheek to try to steady herself, but when she looks up at him—

She isn’t sure she manages it.

He’s tall. Taller than she could have possibly guessed, her head just skimming his collarbones, and she knows that without her heels, without the extra bit of height, she’d be looking at the line of black buttons just beneath the open v of his shirt, where she can see the tan of his skin against the black material, the shift of his chest as his hands come up, moving to the buttons on her coat.

He slips one, two closed before she comes back to herself.

She steps back once, and she pulls in a breath, opening her mouth to say something. To tell him off. To tell him to _fuck off—_ when she feels Grace’s arm slip through hers, the other girl pulling her back and away from Kostin, her voice low and quick as she tugs her closer to whisper into her ear.

Chloe can’t stop herself from looking back at him; his eyes met hers, his smirk crooked and entertained. She looks away, trying not to trip, tugged along at Grace’s side.

 _What the fuck,_ she thinks.

“ _Ohhkay_ ,” Grace whispers excitedly. “Okay, this calls for some _serious_ rethinking—”

The cold air hits them as the doors open, the night air brisk, the city still noisy, lit up in neon and fluorescent city lights. Peter is ahead of them heading down the front steps, glancing back at the girls as Grace talks excitedly into Chloe’s ear.

Chloe looks back again, watching Kostin follow them out; he’s pulling on his own coat, his shoulders shifting as he slides them into a black suit jacket, but his eyes are on her the whole time; his lips tilted, his gaze steady

She wants to shove him, ask him why now, why not before. _Why’d you ignore me all night? How the fuck are you here?_

_Why didn’t you come back to my chat?_

Down the steps, the chilled night air pushes through her coat, the railing is cold and hard beneath her hand—Grace is saying something about a _contract—_ _you should try— or fun, maybe, you deserve—_

Peter’s looking up at them, talking to a black-suited man standing beside a waiting, open car door.

“—I think you should go for it, Clo. He’s _loaded._ If you could manage—”

Chloe glances back again, Kostin smirk tilts a little more into something like a crooked smile.

There’s a squeal of tires from down the street, but it’s New York and honking cars and traffic are common— but Chloe watches Kostin’s head turn towards the sound, his brow furrowing— she startles at the roar of an engine, growing louder and closer, and looks away just as his eyes flick back to hers. 

Two motorcycles rip down the street, the engines sharp and loud as they zip around the few cars out on the side street— and there’s this _noise_ — and an arm, heavy and thick and curving around her waist, jerking her back and away from the _pop-pop-pop_ of—

A gunshot, a _gunshot_ , she thinks, that’s what the noise is.

It’s loud and sudden and _echoing_ through the metal and concrete of the city around them. There’s breaking glass and screaming, but she’s being tugged up and back against a hard chest and the world’s a blur of neon and fluorescent lights spinning together, narrowing down to the arm around her waist and _his_ voice as he turns them away from the street.

She feels the flex of his body, his other arm swinging out and there’s something shiny in it and she feels the tension in his body, the loud, so _loud_ sound of a gun going off right next to her, his arm turning to follow the motorcycles but keeping his back to the street to keep her shielded.

Her heart pounds, everything slides together as his gunshots get swallowed by the sound of screaming, crashing metal sliding across the pavement and the other, single motorcycle disappearing down the street.

There’s shouting around her, but all she can hear is her heartbeat and the echoing gunshots; his arm loosens, her feet touch the ground just enough and she pushes away from him, or tries to, his arm is heavy, curved around her waist, but—

But there’s blood on her leg and on her coat and she follows the splatter to the hand on the stair, to the arm in a black coat, to the spilling, dark hair spread over the concrete steps.

“Grace!” Chloe screams, struggling against Kostin’s grip, squirming and shoving at his arm; she hears him curse, feels him grab after her as she manages to slip free, stumbling down the steps, biting her cheek when her ankle rolls and sends a sharp, shooting pain up her leg. She keeps going, stumbling towards—

“ _Grace_ —” she breaths out, sinking down beside her, there’s blood beneath her hand when she touches the cold cement stair but she’s reaching for Grace’s face. “Grace, Grace— _hey_ —”

Grace’s head lolls; Chloe cups her cheek and reaches for her pulse, but her hands are shaking so badly she can’t get them to sit on the other girl’s skin.

There are voices around her, loud and rough, but she can’t focus on them at all, isn’t even sure it’s _English_ — it’s all a background buzz that gets drowned out beneath her own breathing and the stutter of her voice, the rising panic when Grace won’t move, won’t blink, won’t—

“No- _no_ , come _on_ —” Chloe chokes out, trying to worm her hand into the front of Grace’s coat, to feel a heartbeat, the shift of her chest, _anything_. “ _Grace_!”

There’s something slick on her hand, warm and wet and it coats her fingers and then her palm when she lies it flat on Grace’s chest; there’s no movement, no beat… but _she’s warm_ , Chloe thinks, _she’s still warm—_

When she pulls her hand back, she means to touch Grace’s cheek again, because she’s warm and not cold and that’s good, right? That’s good— but her hand comes out of Grace’s coat covered in red and she blinks at it, at the shine of blood in the city lights, the slickness of it sticking to her skin.

She blinks.

Her eyes shift down to Grace’s chest, to her black coat that has a wet patch that catches the city lights around them, the holes that tear into the fabric—

There’s an arm around her waist, and she’s being tugged up again, rough and sudden enough it jerks the air right out of her chest, he's saying something again, she can feel the roll of his voice against her spine, but all she can do is stare at her hand, glinting a sick red in the lights around them.

_Get her in the car.  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slight bit of blood and gun violence, nothing overly graphic.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for all the comments and encouragement! I hope you like the chapter!!

* * *

five

* * *

_Get her in the car._

She hears the words, but it isn’t until she’s being pushed towards another man that she even starts to understand them. She feels like she’s stuck in syrup, everything is slow and distant and far away like she’s watching it happen to someone else.

It’s happening, she knows it is, but it’s delayed, lagging, dreamlike.

It isn’t until she feels the heavy grip of another man’s hands on her and the cold at her back that she really realises what Kostin’s words mean.

_Get her in the car._

The man she’s shoved into is bulky and strong, he tugs her down the steps, turning and picking her up when she stumbles trying to turn to look back at Grace on the steps.

“Wait—” she chokes out, struggling. “Wait she’s still—”

The man doesn’t say anything but to haul her closer, his arms tight, shifting her weight as he carries her towards an all-black SUV; she hears the door open, hears someone saying something, but she’s twisting to look over the man’s shoulder. There’s more blood on the steps and Peter’s on the ground, someone leaning over him, putting weight on his chest.

The world goes dark, narrowed down the man’s shoulder as he hunches and tucks Chloe into the car, moving her limbs to tug her seatbelt on around her. There’s a click and he leans back and she gets a flash of Kostin again, just one as the man moves out of the door— Kostin on the steps, kneeling beside Grace’s body just as the hears the first pitching scream of police sirens far off— the car door slams shut, leaving her in the dark behind heavily tinted windows.

Everything restarts at once. _She_ restarts, all at once.

“Hey!” she shouts, wrenching herself in the seat, twisting until she can her belt off, lunging towards the door, but the doors are locked, the handle doesn’t do anything as she tugs at it with her frustration climbing higher and higher until she screams and smacks her palm off the glass turning to the man in the front seat. “Let me out!”

The front door opens and a man slips in, the door slamming shut behind him.

“Let me out, you can’t—” the car starts to move and Chloe’s sliding forward before catching herself on the seatback. “You can’t just _leave her there_ —”

“Calm down,” the man in the passenger seat says, slightly out of breath. “Put your belt back on.”

 _We can’t just leave Grace_ , she thinks, she won’t. She _can’t_.

Her hands are sticky and she’s shivering with adrenaline, but she crawls across the leather seat and tries the other door— it doesn’t budge either. Smacking her hand against the glass, Chloe tries her elbow, her frustration like this humming buzz inside of her. She hears the man in the front seat laugh out: _good try—_ and hears her own, twisted, frustrated noise crawling out of her throat when the glass stays thick and solid, tinting the world separate from them.

Keeping her _separate_ from it.

Red and blue lights flicker over the city as cop cars speed by, sirens wailing, racing towards the club; the shifting lights light up the interior of the car just for a second as they go flying past—and Chloe launches herself into the front seat, aiming for the steering wheel. The man in the passenger side curses, but this time there’s no laughter as he reaches for her, trying to grab her flailing, grasping limbs, tugging her back and into his lap as she kicks and fights and scratches at him with her short, sharp nails.

“Let me go! Stop!”

She twists and kicks at the driver and the man curses, turning down another street. “Get her in the back, idiot!”

“Let g—” she screams but it’s cut off by the man’s hand over her mouth.

“You’re being stupid—” he warns, but Chloe sinks her teeth into his hand, and he yanks it back with a sharp, twisted _ow fuck—_

With his hand off her, she elbows him, aiming high and wincing when she feels it connect with something that sends a sharp pain up her bone, but she’s already twisting on his lap and turning, reaching for the door handle. She feels the metal, feels it beneath her hand as she grips it, hears the click of the door, the curse of the driver— _fucking stop her—_

And there are hands on her, harder than before, shifting beneath her, turning and catching her hands and shoving her towards the back seat, it’s rough and her hip connects with the centre console, but he’s bodily shoving her into the back, following her through the narrow gap, cursing all the while.

_Fuckin’ crazy little— what the fuck—_

He shoves her down onto the seat, his weight pinning her down, her wrists in his hand, his hips pressed hard against her ass— and it’s the sudden and real memory of being pinned down like this before that panics her more than anything else. She screams into the leather, and it must catch in him, the panic in her voice and he curses again.

“Fuck, that’s not—” he curses, shifting his weight on her. “Just stop fighting! We’re not gonna hurt you!”

He pulls off her, bringing her with him as he leans back, his back pressed against the door, holding her between his legs, her wrists caught in one of his hands. “Calm down,” he says, breathless and low. “Calm down. We aren’t gonna hurt you.”

Chloe pulls in uneven breaths, trying to get control of her panic, her memories, those old nightmares she thought she’d long-since moved past.

 _Nothing happened,_ she tells herself. _Nothing happened._

He pulls her a little tighter before easing, his breath puffing against the side of her face. “Nothing’s gonna happen.”

Another breath, her heart pounding, his heart beating just as strong against her back.

“Alright?”

Chloe nods.

“She good?” the driver asks, glancing back once.

The man holding her eases his hands off her wrist, his fingers posed to grip on again if she moves, but Chloe holds herself still, no matter how much she wants to try again. It’s only now, when she watches his hand hover that she sees the tattoos, the ink spilling over his hand and down his wrist…

“Y’good, girl?”

Chloe nods, swallowing.

“Jesus,” Tattoo sighs, his arm shifting behind her; running his hand through his hair, she thinks. “What are you, Rocky’s kid?”

The driver snorts, Chloe isn’t sure she understands what he means and frowns, easing up slowly and seeing if he lets her. When he doesn’t stop her, she shifts forward, sliding across the seat with a hiss of her coat against the leather seat.

“Not even a laugh, huh?” he pushes out when Chloe glances at him, his lips quirk. “Tough crowd.”

 _It is the guy_ , she thinks, the one sitting next to Kostin on the couch in the club; dressed in black, the tattoos crawling over one side of his neck. He’s young, mid-twenties at most, his hair shaved short along the sides, falling straight and dark over his forehead before he pushes it back again. There’s blood beneath his nose, running over his lips when he licks them like it isn’t there at all.

He grins at her, his teeth are red, too. “Rocky Balboa? You get it?”

Chloe blinks at him, his eyes narrow and then he huffs a laugh and shakes his head, leaning back against the door and shifting his leg to stretch out over the floor space between the front and back seats, tilting his hips up to pull out a pack of smokes from his pocket.

“Kid, he’s gonna kill you if you light that.”

“Not gonna light it,” Tattoo grumbles, but he still sticks one in his mouth, letting it hang there as he looks Chloe over in a slow, curious way. “And he needs to mind his fuckin’ business.”

The driver snorts again before the car falls silent.

She isn’t sure how long they drive for, she’s too focused on her own heartbeat, on watching the city streak by, she tries to track it, but she only picks out a few landmarks, and when they pass by the same street again, she thinks they might be looping to throw her off.

Or… she thinks, _maybe it’s_ _to throw someone else off._

She isn’t sure which one she’d rather it be.

Eventually, the car turns and the world goes dark before getting a lot brighter. Fluorescent lights, she realises, looking out the tinted windows. An underground parking lot.

Which isn’t creepy, she tells herself, or terrifying _,_ _at all._

“Hey,” Tattoo says, the cigarette shifting in his lips as he speaks. “Relax.”

Chloe has no idea how the hell she’s supposed to do that. But if they’re stopping— if they open the door—

She’s quick, she thinks, even if she’s not strong, she’s quick, she can _be quick—_

“Don’t even think about,” Tattoo warns, like he can see her thought process.

Chloe glares at him, the driver pulls into a spot near a silver elevator set into the concrete walls… her heart trips, stomach twisting with nerves, she can’t stop herself from glancing back the way they came to see if she can see how far it is to street level.

The car shuts off, the driver steps out at the same time Tattoo shifts to sit up, waiting for the driver to let him out.

“Kid locks,” he says with a grin, like it’s something Chloe would find funny right now. “Pain in the ass, huh?”

Chloe grits her teeth, watching as the door opens and Tattoo slides out, easy as anything, fixing his jacket and peering at her with a smirking sort of smile and a lifted brow. “Gonna be good?”

Chloe flips him her middle finger and sends him a withering smile, slipping her heel off the back of her ankle just out of his sightline.

They circle around the car, Chloe watches them, waiting, slipping her other heel off her foot.

The door starts to open, Chloe tilts back and _kicks_ it as hard as she can, it pushes wide, making the driver stumble, Tattoo’s head turns to follow the sudden movement, his mouth opening— but Chloe’s already sliding out, the cement cold on her bare feet—

And her ankle throbs, making her stumble and catch herself, but she’s up and trying to push through it, her eyes watering, taking another stuttering, faulty step forward when she’s tugged back. Tattoo is there, scooping her up, his voice exasperated and rough.

“You’re something else, girl, lotta good that did, huh?”

She bites her tongue, looking down at her ankle, swollen in a way she didn’t see, didn’t _feel_ in the car, in the adrenaline since—

Her hands are bloody, tinted red, with flaky bits of dried blood.

She didn’t notice that, either.

She swallows, tasting the same copper in her mouth that’s on her hands. _Grace_.

“Shoes off and everything,” Tattoo laughs to the driver who shakes his head and then tilts it towards the elevators, with a _let’s go,_ sort of direction. Her high heels are dangling from two of his fingers.

_Grace’s heels._

She wants to ask. The words are there, clawing at her throat. _GraceGraceGrace._ But she can’t get them out. They sit there, scratching at her until she’s tasting more copper, or maybe it’s just bile, sugary-sweet from the alcohol earlier in the night.

She swallows, staring at her hands, at the blood on her coat, on _Grace’s coat—_

It’s not the first time she’s seen her hands like this and she isn’t sure what to do, what she’s feeling; memories racing up no matter how hard she tries to push them back down. Her adrenaline fading, her ankle throbs like the energy she had, the anger she had, everything that kept reality away except for the pressing, urgent, animal-in-a-trap need to _get away…_ fades and leaves her stuck, sinking deeper and deeper into a reality that’s as bight and unforgiving as the fluorescent lights hanging above them in the underground parking.

These are not good men.

(Kostin’s arm curled around her waist, tight and heavy, his other arm stretching out, the gun going off in steady, loud, _so loud_ bangs.)

She’s been— and Grace is—Peter— Kostin—

Chloe swallows, pushing out a steadying breath and curling her stained fingers into the front of her coat. Tattoo looks down at her, she can feel it, but she can’t bring herself to look up at him.

 _Coward_ , she thinks. Her eyes prickle, her stomach churns.

The elevator lets out a too cheery beep, gliding open, Driver steps on, Tattoo follows. Chloe’s ankle looks even worse in the bright light of the elevator.

Her hands do, too.

“I can walk,” Chloe pushes out, but Tattoo just snorts a laugh, shaking his head.

“Yeah, you know that saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I’ll own that. I’m not looking for a third, girl. That’s just embarrassing.”

“You could just let me go, pretend nothing happened.” But even as she says it, she knows that’s not true. If she gets out, she’s going to the cops. Grace deserves it, doesn’t matter what happens to her, doesn’t matter if she’s been raised on snitches get stitches or ditches or, you know,

 _kidnapped_.

Grace deserves it.

 _If she’s dead,_ some part of her whispers, hopeful, stupid, little part of her. _She was still warm, maybe… maybe she—_

In the elevator’s mirrored wall, Chloe can see Tattoo’s bloody face, can see Driver pull out his phone and fire off a series of texts before leaning back against the elevator wall, watching the floors climb higher. Tattoo sinks back a step, leaning back against the wall, still holding Chloe. He pulls in a snorting breath through his nose and it’s thick and gross sounding, Chloe can guess it’s the blood drying in his nose.

“Fucking kill for a cigarette.”

Driver shakes his head and sighs, lifting his phone again when it lights up with a text.

The elevator’s cheery music fills the silence. She isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or cry or vomit.

She squirms in his arms. “Let me go. I won’t run.”

Driver’s eyes flick up from his phone, his fingers stilling. Tattoo sighs and it’s a long minute where Chloe holds herself still. “I promise.”

“ _Blyad_ ,” he mutters before lowering the arm he has curved beneath Chloe’s legs, down. His other arm stays at her back, letting her find her balance. The floor is cold on her bare feet and her ankle throbs, but she limbs a step away, putting her back against the elevator wall.

They look at her, Tattoo pushes out a little snort before straightening and tilting his head back against the wall to look down his bloody nose at her. Chloe forces herself to meet his eyes; it’s not condescending, she thinks, it’s just… weighing.

His lips quirk. “I bet you can’t sing or dance, right?”

Chloe frowns at him, watching his smirk turn into a smile. “What?”

Driver says something in a low, rough language that she doesn’t catch enough of to guess what it is before they both laugh quietly. “Ain’t nothin’ but the fight, right?”

Driver shakes his head, his lips twitching. Tattoo’s head lolls back, looking down at her, his grin wide. He looks half-crazy, with his bloody face and tattoos. “Rocky, you know?”

Chloe shakes her head. Because he’s _crazy_ , she decides _, they’re both crazy_. This whole thing is _crazy_.

Maybe she’s dreaming.

“Rocky Balboa. Stallone? The movie?” he pumps his fist in the air. “C’mon, everyone’s seen it.”

_Oh right_ , she thinks, Rocky is an old movie, isn’t it? She’s heard about it. Boxing? Something like that. But she doesn’t feel like encouraging him so instead she scowls at him and looks away.

“How haven’t you seen it?” he almost sounds offended and she sees his head turn in her peripherals, looking at Driver. “Man, you believe that? We’re fixing th—”

Driver says something in another language again, and Chloe thinks it might be Russian. There’s an elderly couple who own a little restaurant a few streets over who sell the best little pancake-like things, _blini’s,_ she thinks, and she’s sure the roll of Driver’s words sounds just like they do when they old couple is behind the counter and cooking together.

It sounds just like when they’d taught her and Kayla how to say _spasibo,_ _eto_ _vkusno_ — laughing with them and at them as they tried to sound it out around bites until they’d gotten the hang of the words, before telling them it meant _thank you, it’s delicious_ , as they stuffed themselves full on those perfect pancake-like things.

Her stomach grumbles, she misses Kayla and the blinis. The old woman’s soft hands, handing them a little take out box stuffed full with extras to take home.

Looking down at the floor, Chloe bites her cheek, blinking away the heat behind her eyes. _It’s just all so fucked up. How did this happen?_

She realises she doesn’t even know where her phone is. Her clutch is gone. She wonders if it’s in the car, or if it fell off on the stairs…in the twist of her world when Kostin had grabbed her and pulled her back—

She tries not to think about it, about the way his arm curved around her— but the thoughts come anyway, and she can’t avoid the one, itchy, unavoidable little truth as the memories replay on repeat in her mind:

He saved her, didn’t he?

In a second, a blink, a _poppoppop—_

Kostin tugged _Chloe_ , not _Grace_ out of the spray of bullets.

Curled his arm around her waist and tugged her back and up and behind his body—

(Pulled out a gun, held her against his chest, took aim and fired _back_ —)

The _DING_ of the elevator makes her jump, startling her out of her thoughts.

The elevator doors slide open to reveal a small lobby with one door on either side and one straight ahead, Chloe tries to track it all, glancing under her lashes at everything, waiting, she thinks, they’ll get complacent, underestimate her, look away for a _second_ too long.

She’s not dead yet, she thinks, she’s not— _Grace_ , her brain bleeds up, sticky and red and cold. _You’re not Grace._

She squeezes her eyes shut, just for a second, waiting for the scream in her throat to pass, her eyes prickling with heat, her throat tightening…

She won’t cry, she thinks, _Grace isn’t dead. Not yet. Not for sure. You don’t know, Chloe. You don’t know._

_Don’t jinx it._

Bracing her hand on the wall, she braces herself for the ache in her ankle and limps a little, following Driver out of the elevator.

Tattoo hovers behind her and she feels him step closer, but she glares at him, limping forward, determined to walk. If she’s… _kidnapped_ or whatever, she’s at least going to figure out how to get herself out again.

Driver reaches the door ahead first and he steps back, holding out his hand and making a little impatient noise. Tattoo steps closer and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a bunch of keys. He singles out a bright pink one and hands it to Driver.

Driver looks at it and then at Tattoo.

“Really,” Driver huffs, but he snorts a laugh as he slides the key into the door ahead of them, pushing the door wide and holding it open for Chloe to limp in.

It’s dark inside, or it is compared to the underground lot and the lobby, but Chloe blinks into it and as her eyes adjust it’s not that it’s dark, it’s just lit by nothing but the glow of the city around them and it takes her a moment to make sense of what she’s looking at.

It’s an apartment, she realises. Or… a loft might be the better term. Whatever it’s supposed to be, it’s big, surrounded by huge windows to show off the city around them, letting the city lights stream in, stretching across dark floors in stretches of pale silver.

She doesn’t get much of a chance to look around, she’s swept up again, an arm beneath her knees and another beneath her back.

“Sorry, Rocky, but it’s painful to watch.”

“You could just let me go. Then you wouldn’t have to see me at all.”

“Or I could _not_ do that and you could just calm your cute ass down and trust us for like, five minutes.”

“Or not,” Chloe argues, glaring at him as he carries her along, he grins down at her, his face still bloody, but he doesn’t seem to notice or he just doesn’t care. She’s leaning more towards the second. “Getting shoved into a car and taken to some… apartment or whatever, doesn’t exactly make you very trustworthy.”

He shrugs. “Just wait till I lock you in the bedroom.”

Chloe tenses, her head twisting to where they’re going, a door ahead that sits open and waiting. She braces to shove at him, but Tattoo laughs and she can’t help but look back at him.

“Relax, babe, only psychos have locks on the outside of bedrooms. And we’re not psychos.”

“Right, sure,” Chloe mutters, but he’s carrying her into the bedroom and it’s lit the same as the other part of the loft, two massive windows make up the exterior wall, floor to ceiling to let in the city lights that stretch towards Brooklyn. “Except for the whole kidnapping thing.”

Tattoo snorts as he sets her down next to the bed, waiting until she’s got her feet under her before stepping back. “Don’t think about it as a kidnapping. It’s more like… forceful protection.”

“ _Forceful_ _protection_ ,” she parrots, sending him a disbelieving look. “Are you serious?”

He shrugs, pulling a face that says, _sure, why not._ “Sounds good to me.”

Chloe narrows her eyes at him. “You’re _crazy_. Why am I here? Why can’t you just… let me go?”

He hesitates, looking more serious than he has since she was forced into the car. “It’s…complicated. Tonight wasn’t… it shouldn’t have happened, and I’m sorry about your friend but he wants you here, so you’re here.”

_He wants you here._

“You mean Kostin, don’t you?” Chloe asks and tries not to think about him on her computer screen or him behind her, or him crouching next to Grace on those steps. “I don’t— why does he want me here? I promise I won’t say anything. You could just say I got away?”

He gives her an incredulous look before his hand is up and he gives her a little shove on her shoulder, she staggers back, her knees hit the bed and she plops down against it, glaring up at him when she braces her arms behind her to sit back up.

“ _Yeah_ , Rocky, you might be tough, but you’re _tiny_. No fucking way I’d say I let some five-foot nothing, tiny girl get away from me. That shit’d be embarrassing as fuck. He’d _never_ let me live it down.”

With a withering look, Chloe moves to stand, but Tattoo shoves her shoulder again, making her fall back again. He’s fighting a smile that says: _see, tiny._ “Just stay, alright. Jesus. Relax a bit.”

“Fuck you,” she says instead, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “If you’re not locking me in, then I can just leave, can’t I?”

“I’d really appreciate if you didn’t.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t care.”

He snorts, stepping back and running a hand through his hair. “Listen, Luca will be back soon… just wait, alright? He’ll explain it all to you.”

“Kidnapping doesn’t really need to be explained.”

“Forceful protection.”

“Forceful _fuck you,_ ” Chloe bites out, turning her head away.

He snorts, but she hears him pull in a deep breath before letting it out. “I know you’re scared, but nothing’s gonna happen to you. Promise.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s not that kind of guy. We’re not that kind of bad.”

 _But you are bad,_ she thinks, looking up at him. He seems to realise what she’s thinking and he shrugs like it’s answer enough. He looks sincere, he _does_ — but she’s still been forced here. Still shoved in a car. Still covered in Grace’s blood who she left behind on the steps of some stupid businessman’s club all because Chloe needed money. Needed a way out. Wanted more than she had.

She swallows and forces out: “What about Grace?”

He frowns, confused.

“My friend.”

He shrugs. “Don’t know, sorry. You’ll have to wait for Luca.”

Chloe chews her cheek, pulling in a breath. What choice does she have, really? “What if I try to escape?”

He hesitates. “You shouldn’t.”

“You’ll hurt me?”

He frowns like he isn’t sure why she’d think that. “No. But you won’t be able to.”

“What’s he want with me?”

Tattoo shrugs. “Don’t know. Didn’t exactly have time to play fifty questions like we are, you know?”

Glaring at him, she ignores the tilt of his lips and looks away. The city stretches out through the glass, the Brooklyn Bridge lit up and glowing in the distance. She limps over to it, aware of Tattoo watching her. There’s a balcony outside and she peers along the glass for the door. It’s locked.

“What if I break the glass? And scream for help?”

He snorts, “I know you think you’re Goliath, babe, but that glass isn’t breaking no matter how hard you throw anything at it and that door is locked for security, _not_ psycho reasons. In case you, you know, start making assumptions.”

She can practically hear the grin in his voice and she rolls her eyes but doesn’t turn around. Tattoo sighs and shifts from somewhere behind her. “How about, if you promise to sit tight, I’ll go see if I can find anything out about your friend?”

She glances back at him and he lifts an eyebrow. “Deal?”

She doesn’t want to agree, but she wants to know what happened to Grace, if she’s okay, if she’s… _not._ The want to keep fighting, to run, to break the glass anyway— it’s all there, burning behind her rib cage.

But, _Grace,_ she thinks, _is more important._

Chloe nods. Tattoo lingers only for another second before nodding back and turning to leave.

The door shuts quietly behind him and she listens to his footsteps until they fade; turning back to the window, she watches the lights glimmer below them, cars moving along the street, lights in other building turning off or on; people going about their lives.

It’s quiet, it’s normal. It’s almost comforting sitting in the quiet dark and watching New York continue to move on below her.

Chloe rests her forehead against the glass and pulls in a breath before letting it out, slow and steady.

There’s a shift of fabric. A push of cold air over her skin.

She frowns, trying to curl in on herself but there’s something warm on her arm and it’s pulling her upright; there’s a whiny noise in her throat, a gentle _hush_ of a sound, something warm and hard beneath her forehead. It smells good, she thinks in a hazy sort of way, and presses herself into the warmth around her.

There’s a hand on the back of her neck, threading up into her hair and it’s soothing, calming… holding her against the warmth she’s burrowing into as she gets colder, her arms being moved, one at a time; the slide of fabric, the shift of her body, and then she’s on something soft and the warmth in front of her fades away. She wants to complain, wants it to come back but something settles over her and it’s weighing her back down into sleep as she curls up under it.

It’s bright.

Chloe frowns and rolls over, tugging her blankets higher and curling tighter, her legs sliding smoothly along soft sheets.

Way too soft sheets.

Moving her leg again, she feels the softness, consciousness rolling through her foggy, sleep-heavy brain with every pass of her leg against sheets too smooth to be her own.

This is not her bed.

She’s—

Last night—

Jolting up with a sharp inhale, Chloe’s faced with an empty, sunlight-filled room, and New York, in all its glory, stretched out as far as she can see through the windows ahead of her.

It’s not her bed and not her room because she’s been kidnapped. _Forceful protection,_ a voice says at the back of her mind.

 _Bullshit,_ she thinks. _Kidnapping_ is _kidnapping_.

But she’s been… she remembers being left in the room, remembers sinking down to sit on the floor at the end of the bed… remembers hugging her knees, the adrenaline gone and leaving her worn-out, the reality of her situation crashing back, leaving her sore and tired and terrified.

And now she’s waking up _in_ the bed.

Her coat is gone, but she’s still in her dress, tucked beneath the covers of an incredibly soft, wide bed and left… to sleep?

 _What the fuck_ , she thinks.

Pushing up, she slips out of the bed, almost falling when she forgets about her ankle; bracing herself, she stands again, wincing at the ache. Her hands are still stained with Grace’s blood, she realises, looking down at them against the white sheets, but they look…

They look _cleaner,_ she thinks, like they’ve been wiped off; the dark-brown of dried blood sits under her nails, in the lines on her palm but it is less than she remembers being on her skin.

She remembers… being moved. Her forehead resting against something, burrowing into it. _A warm body_ , she thinks, _that’s what it was, wasn’t it?_ Someone moved her from the floor at the foot of the bed and… and tucked her in. Someone wiped her hands and took off her coat and tucked her into bed.

Someone—

 _He_ did it, didn’t he? (She can see it in her head, his hands on her, lifting her up, peeling off her coat, one arm at a time, hushing her grumbles, letting her press against him before laying her back and tucking her into bed.)

Frowning, shaking off the images in her head, she pushes away from the bed and limps towards the door. She’s braced for it to be locked, because— because they’re _kidnappers_ and who cares what Tattoo said, she’s prepared for it to be locked.

She smells coffee. Breakfast, something warm and rich that makes her stomach grumble.

It’s… it feels wrong. Out of place. Homey. _Tilted_. Too normal. She doesn’t know what it feels like. Just _weird_. Being kidnapped should not smell like bacon and eggs.

The door handle turns without any resistance beneath her hand, and she eases the door open… hearing low voices as soon as she does. She can’t make out what they’re saying, just fragments of words as she strains her ears. She eases out of the bedroom, shivering a little in the cool apartment, bracing her hand on the brick wall and using it to help her walk towards the voices back out the way she was carried in.

A low voice says something in another language, something smoother than Russian; the pitch of it sinks in her stomach and she tries to ignore the flickering warmth of it, the way she thinks she _knows_ that voice, even in a different language.

“Man, _English_ ,” someone else says, and it’s Tattoo, she’s sure of it. “Or Russian. Too early for this shit, m’brains not awake enough.”

“You need to practice more, you’re shit at it.”

“Think two languages it more than enough, we don’t all need to be walking Duolingos like you.”

A laugh, “Are you using that?”

“Shut up, you told me to practice.”

“That’s cute.”

“Fuck off.”

Chloe hesitates, right at the edge of the wall, she tries to remember what she saw in the dark, the layout of the loft from the front door, the stretch of the moonlight over dark floors, a sitting area, couches… it’s not much to go off of. But she’s more than sure there’s a very real chance that as soon as she rounds the corner, she’ll see them. And they’ll see her.

She digs her nails a little into the rough brick, gritting her teeth and steeling herself before swallowing her nerves and rounding the corner.

The brick wall she’s touching stretches forward, and she can see the door they came in last night a few feet ahead of her. Somehow it seems to be so close and so far, all at once.

And _he’s_ there, sitting on the far side of a large, black marble kitchen island; a mug in front of him, his hand wide around it as it sends that coffee smell up in lazy white curls of steam. Tattoo is next to him at the island, leaning on one elbow, cupping his own mug like it’s the only thing keeping him going.

They both look up at her at the same time.

Chloe swallows, her eyes darting to the door that sits between her and them.

“There she is,” Tattoo says with a grin as he slips off his seat and reaches for a leather jacket that hangs over the back of the tall chair he’s sitting on. “Mornin,’ Rocky, window still intact?”

Chloe glances at Kostin, but he’s only a steady, too-heavy gaze that makes her heart tick up and her insides squirm, overly aware of the thin of her dress, the chill of the room, the goosebumps spreading along her skin. She looks away and glares at Tattoo, who laughs and runs a hand through his hair as he walks towards her.

Her nails sink into the brickwork; looking at Tattoo is easier, she decides, and she focuses on him instead of the other man. “You lied.”

He shrugs. “Busy night. Someone tried to break my nose.”

Chloe scowls. “I can try again.”

He huffs a laugh, giving her another smile as he rights his jacket; a line of a purple bruise curving beneath his right eye from her elbow.

“I want to leave,” Chloe bites out as he stops in front of the door. Some part of her knows that he’s leaving, that he’s leaving her with Kostin— and she doesn’t know how she feels about it.

He reaches for the door, stopping to look over his shoulder as he lifts his hand in a wave meant for the man behind him. “Good luck with that.”

Chloe glares at him, opening her mouth— but Tattoo steps through the door and it shuts behind him with a thud and a cut-off bit of laughter. _“See ya, Rocky.”_

In the sudden silence after the thud, Chloe’s eyes sink back to Kostin, still sitting at the kitchen island, at ease in his seat, with one arm resting on the top, holding his mug of coffee.

(A shift of fabric, her arm moving, a warm rumbling sound beneath her cheek that she tries to burrow into _, it’s alright,_ _you’re alright._ )

Chloe blinks and meets his eyes. He’s watching her and waiting, the barest, barely-there tilt to his lips.

Curiosity, interest, something entertained— she isn’t sure what it is, just that it’s focused on her. Everything jumbles together in her head. Yesterday, laughing with Grace, the club, the gunshots, the car— His arm around her, his voice, the blankets settling over her. A hand wide on her cheek.

(Her computer screen. His smile. The buzz of her bullet. _Sweetheart._ )

She swallows around the uptick of her pulse, her nails scratching into the brick to ground herself. “Why am I here?”

His lips twitch. “Come here.”

Chloe glares, she _won’t_. She won’t just do what he says, he doesn’t get to just tell her what to do. She doesn’t care if he’s kidnapped her. She won’t make it _easy._

“People will wonder where I am. You can’t just—I want to leave. Tattoo said he’d tell me about Grace. What happened—is she—"

His lips twitch again. “Tattoo?”

Chloe bites the inside of her cheek, ignoring the flush that rises inside of her, embarrassed by saying the nickname out loud. “The guy that just— He’s got… he’s got Tattoos—” she glares at him, feeling her anger spiking. “It’s not like anyone told me _names_ before shoving me into a car, or brought me here and _kidnapped me!_ ”

“Forceful protection,” he says with a lazy grin, leaning back against the stool back. “Isn’t that what he called it?”

Chloe glares, gritting her teeth. “It’s _kidnapping,_ you’re all—”

“Aleksey,” he says like that’s somehow supposed to make sense to her. “Or, Aleksander,” he shrugs, his lips tilting up into a half-smile. “Depending on if I’m angry at him or not.”

It’s a joke, she can tell it is, but she looks at him and all she can think is that she isn’t sure if it’s a bad thing he’s telling her the other man’s name. She thinks it might be. It feels like… like he can tell her their names because she won’t or _can’t_ tell anyone else.

Like he has no intention of letting her get the _chance_ to tell anyone _anything._

Her stomach sinks. She isn’t sure if she wants to cry or not, if she’s scared or not. She isn’t sure of anything other than being cold and tired and _lost._

Like her head is just skimming the surface of the water and the waves are getting higher and higher.

He must see something in her face because the amusement on his face fades a little and his chest shifts as he pulls in a slow breath and lets it out steadily.

He turns, standing and walking around the edge of the kitchen island to the counter.

“You drink coffee?”

She does, but it’s the ten pounds of sugar, whip cream and syrup kind. Not the black, strong-smelling coffee he’s pouring into a new mug. She doesn’t answer, glancing at the front door again.

“I know you’re scared, but that won’t go the way you want it to.”

When she looks back at him, with his head turned to face her, she knows it’s a threat. A soft one, but a threat all the same.

His eyes are light, but his hair is dark, softer than it was last night, more like that first night, the first time she saw him through her screen, all rough-voiced and… he was _nice_ , she thinks, this moment stolen away from the routine of her life, this nice, stupid-hot man who she _wanted—_

And now, now he’s kidnapped her and threatening her and— and he still looks like that man, but he’s _big_ in real life. Real and solid in a way a picture can’t ever be; all broad shoulders and thick with an obvious strength and _he pulled her close, stretched out his arm, took aim and—_

The gunshots are _so loud_ in her head.

He’s _dangerous._

She isn’t sure why she feels betrayed, she doesn’t know him. He’s not anything to her.

But she does. And it stings sharply in her stomach.

“Is Grace alive?” she chokes out, swallowing around her nerves and her fear and the very real reality of her situation. He could do anything to her. She knows what the world is like. (And it’s terrifying to her that she isn’t even scared that he’ll kill her, but everything else, everything he can do _instead— keep her. Use her. Sell her._ )

 _He saved your life,_ some part of her mind whispers, _pulled you back and kept you safe—_

He… picked her up from the floor, wiped Grace’s blood off her hands, peeled off her bloody coat and tucked her into bed.

She shakes her head, her throat tight as she looks at him. “I need... I need to know.”

He looks at her for a long moment before his chest shifts with a slow breath, he turns and leans against the counter, crossing his arms. “She made it through the night,” he says, and watches her as he says it, letting her fill in the things unsaid, _alive but not good, alive but could still—_

But Chloe’s relief is instantaneous and it feels like every knot in her stomach untangles, like she’s let this heavy, terrible box go and her arms are made of Jello and she’s just…floating there, aware of herself and that sudden lightness.

She hasn’t asked God for anything in years, but she does now, letting her eyes close as she pushes out a steadying breath: _God_ , _please, please let her make it. I won’t ask for anything ever again. Please._

She’s aware of Kostin watching her, but she’s too focused on her relief to care until she opens her eyes again and meets his. He tilts his head.

“Come here, Chloe.”

She takes a step before the words sink in.

_Chloe._

Her name sits between them like this rope, this frayed cord, pulling tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter…

He’s watching her, waiting. Chloe wants to lie, to deny it, to pretend it’s nothing.

It’s such a small name, two little syllables, so much weight.

She meets his eyes.

He takes something out from his pocket and holds it, palm up so she can see it.

Her phone. Cracked and black, sits small and innocuous in his hand.

“You should really lock your phone,” he says lightly. Like he isn’t holding her property, holding her _hostage—_ like he didn’t _go through her fucking phone_ while she was passed out. “You never know who’ll find it.”

“You—” her anger spikes, she takes a half step forward, her ankle throbs, she grits her teeth. The door is right there.

Right there.

She looks at it, he looks at her, his eyes flick to the door and back again. “Don’t try it.”

But Chloe darts forward, biting her cheek as her ankle throbs brighter, tilting forward and reaching for the door, aware of his moving, long-legged and reaching for her at the same time.

She gets her hand on the doorknob, tilts her body into it, it opens—

The world shifts and she’s being lifted, _scooped up_ like a ragdoll, his arms under her knees and back even as she tenses and pushes at his shoulder.

“Let go! Fucking—”

She can fight, she _will_ fight but—

“Calm down.”

“Fuck you,” she pushes out, pressing her palm against the meat of his shoulder even though she knows, she _does_ , there’s no way she can stop him from doing whatever he wants. He’s too big and she’s too small, and it’s almost laughable the size difference between them.

“Chloe,” he says, and she can _feel_ her name in his chest, the roll of his words, the pitch of them in her ear and against her side, low and steadying like she’s… some riled, feral cat he’s trying to coax closer. “Relax, sweetheart.”

She hates his voice, she decides, clenching her eyes shut just for a minute, trying to squeeze the memory of him out of her head, to ignore the reality of him, his muscles and his hands and her skin.

(An arm around her stomach, the other stretched out, the _bang bang bang_ —)

Her ankle hurts; she doesn’t want to cry but she’s somehow exhausted and wound up and stretched out like she’s this thin bit of metal reverberating at an endless, high pitch.

 _Relax,_ he says again. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She wants Kayla. Her bottom lip wobbles and her throat burns. She bites her cheek so hard it hurts. She won’t cry. She _won’t._

When she opens her eyes again, she has to blink through a traitorous wetness in her eyes, but she sniffs and swallows and tries to ignore how her own hand is curled, white-knuckled into the fabric of his shirt over his chest.

He’s carrying her up an open-backed set of stairs she thinks she saw last night.

When they reach the top, there’s more morning sunlight, more windows, more stretching New York skyline.

There’s a bed. Her insides twist and sink.

But he’s only carrying her through a bedroom and into a bathroom that’s equally as bright as everywhere else. He carries her in and towards a double-sink vanity. The marble counter is cold beneath her thighs when he eases her down on to it, his arm staying warm behind her back until he knows she’s stable, bracing a hand on the counter as he pulls away.

He moves towards the second sink, crouching down to a cabinet and pulling out a white box.

A first aid kit, she realises, as he snaps the lid and pulls out a roll of a bandage before stepping back in front of her.

She isn’t sure if she’s afraid of him or not. It’s all… jumbled. He’s the guy on her computer screen, the guy in the club, the guy who saved her but pulled out a gun and fired back. The guy who kidnapped her but— but tucked her into bed.

His hand touches her knee, Chloe jolts at the touch— “Easy,” he mutters, his voice low and steadying as the heat of his palm cups the side of her knee before sliding down along her calf. “I guess they were right, hm? You are a little wild thing.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, not while he’s taking a half-step back and lifting her ankle, his hand wide and surrounding, swallowing it up but so… so _careful_. Her ankle swollen, she can see it and he must as well because he cups the sole of her foot instead and lifts it a little higher.

She braces herself, leaning back a little against the sink and hates how her insides twist with how he looks, the crisp white of his shirt, the width of his shoulders and body, the angles of his face as he looks down…the size of his hand on her foot, the way his thumb slides over the sharp bone of her ankle.

"I forgot about your ankle," he says lowly, with his thumb stroking slowly over the bone and along the side of her foot. "They told me you were hurt."

His touch should be ticklish but instead, it just sends a flicker up her body, spreads goosebumps along her skin until she feels it all over and shivers. She tells herself it’s the cold. The marble counter beneath her, the mirror at her back. The chill in the bathroom compared to the heat of his touch against her skin, but...

She shivers again.

Kostin cups her foot, his eyes moving up from her foot, up her body, over the inched-up hem of her wrinkled dress over her thighs before they slowly make their way back up to her face.

The air tightens, or her skin does, and all she can do is look at him, feeling like every bit of her awareness and nerves is strung-tight and burning right where his skin touches hers.

His hair is inky-dark, falling just out of place across his forehead, not as styled as it was the night before.

His chest shifts with a breath, his eyes sink back down to her ankle. Chloe shivers, her fingers bleeding white on the marble; his eyes flick to them.

She wants him to touch her. Wants him to let her go. Wants to kick him and run. Wants him to say her name again. Wants to go home. Wants to know if all of him is as warm as his hand is.

He kidnapped you, part of her brain screams. _He told them to take you._

_(Get her in the car.)_

He cups her foot a little tighter, her toes touch the hard, warm heat of his stomach as he holds her foot and frowns. “You’re shaking. Do you want to shower before I wrap your ankle?”

Her eyes dart to the shower behind him that’s more of a section of the bathroom that’s glassed-in; she tenses as his words sink in. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on. _Shower?_

Why does he care?

Why is he even— why is she still here? Why did he save her and not Grace? Why did he tell them to take her? There are so many questions inside of her she feels like screaming as they pile up, clawing in her throat to be let out.

 _This is crazy,_ she thinks, _crazy._

“I want to go home,” she pushes out, lips darting out to wet her lips. Her mouth is dry, she’s thirsty and tired and she wants to climb into bed and forget any of this ever happened. Bury herself beneath her covers and wait for it to all just… go away. “You can’t just— you can’t _keep_ me here. I want my phone. You had no right— you can’t just go through people’s shit—”

He huffs a noise that's something caught between a laugh and a grunt before stepping back and letting her ankle go. “You should shower. I’ll grab you some clothes and we’ll talk after.”

“Hey!” she shouts at his back as he turns to go, leaving her glaring at his back. “Hey! I want to leave! You can’t just—” she moves to slip off the sink, gritting her teeth at the ache in her ankle, limping after him. “Hey!”

He turns back to face her, an exasperated look on his face when he sees her. “For fuck’s sake, just _—_ ” he scoops her up again, but this time he walks her into the shower, ignoring the way she tenses and fights at his grip. “Calm down.”

“Let go!”

He sets her down again on a bench against a long, tiled wall in the shower, fighting her flailing limbs until he catches them in one hand and holds them against her lap. He grips her chin with his other hand, crouched down in front of her so there’s nowhere to look but at him. “That’s _enough._ You’re going to shower, you’ve still got your friends blood on you and you’re hurt. I’ll bring you some clothes and when you’re done and calmed down, we’ll talk.”

Chloe glares at him, mulish and breathing hard.

“Alright?”

She nods once before jerking her chin out of his grip.

His lips twitch and he huffs a laugh. “Cute.”

She can’t glare any harder than she is, but she tries anyway. _Fuck you,_ she thinks, _fuck you fuck you fuck you—_

He pushes up, looking down at her for a stretch of a moment before reaching for a black tile set into the wall behind her; he presses some buttons and the shower starts. It rains down in a patter, a wide, rain-style shower-head that sprays her feet lightly, but the glassed-in shower is large enough to not get either of them completely wet.

It gets warm quickly, he steps back but lingers in front of her, Chloe stares at the floor, gritting her teeth.

“There are towels against the wall there,” he says, but she keeps her eyes down, ignoring him even though she knows he's looking at her. “Twenty minutes. I’ll leave clothes on the bed for you.”

His footsteps are silent beneath the hum of the shower, the rising of the steam around her, but she thinks she feels it anyway, the moment he leaves, the click of the door behind him… this little _shift_ of the air around her.

Chloe lets out a shaky breath and hugs her knees as the glass fogs over, the shower making everything warm and hazy around her as the reaching, splattering spray from the shower gets wetter; turning the green silk of her dress darker and darker.

She shivers.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aha, i know this chapter makes this fic look super serious and dark but it's not... like at all. Obviously it'll have some heavy topics, but it's not going to be a dark fic. Morally skewed, definitely. But not super dark.
> 
> And the next chapter will be all Luca and Chloe. Sorry for like, teasing him so much. There was a bit more to set up that I didn't want to just speed through.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked it! Let me know what you think! Also Happy Valentines Day! it seemed like a good day to post this on ;)


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

six

* * *

Chloe peels off her damp dress standing just outside of the shower spray; it falls straight and rain-like from the ceiling, splattering against her toes. Her underwear and bra follow it onto the bench, and it’s a shiver, a limped-step and she’s sinking into that warm spray.

It’s hot and steamy in a way that strips her thoughts away; her head tilts up, her eyes close, everything softens and sinks and drips away into the water sliding over her skin.

It’s… _amazing_.

Like standing naked under the sun while it’s raining. It warms her up from the inside out, every breath-full of steam, every gently sliding trail of hot water, until it’s just _Chloe_ left behind.

At least, until she pushes her hands over her face and up into her hair to slick it back, blinking into the steam shower and catching sight of her own hands.

There’s a dried brown crust caught beneath her nails and a murky-red tint to the lines on her palms. Her momentary peace falls apart and Chloe sighs, rubbing her hands together under the spray, watching the murky-red colour spread before fading away.

Looking around, she finds a shelf that’s set into the tiled-wall and inside of it, some bottles of shampoo and conditioner. She limps closer and reaches for the soap first, it’s not a plain bar of Dove soap, there’s something else in it, something woodsy and warm and masculine, but there’s nothing else but shampoo, so she slicks the bar up in her hands and scrubs at her hands, picks beneath her nails, until there’s nothing left on her but clean, pinked-up skin.

She watches the suds roll down her legs, over her feet, the trimmed, shiny, soft-pink tint on her toenails.

 _It’s part of the package,_ Grace says in her head, Chloe’s foot on her lap, _we’re selling them a perfect little idea, you know? A little bit of a fantasy._

She presses her toes into the wet tile and tries not to think about Grace lying in a hospital bed or on cement steps or the flatline buzz of a heart monitor.

Shaking her head, Chloe pulls in a breath and reaches for the shampoo, popping the lid and sniffing it out of curiosity; it smells just like the soap and when she tilts some into her palm, it’s smooth and creamy and slides into her hair like none of her cheap shampoos at home do.

The smell fills up around her, weighed warm in the steam; she tries to ignore it, to pretend she doesn’t like it, but her mind drifts to Kostin.

 _Luca,_ she thinks, rolling the name in her mouth, her tongue to the back of her teeth, the soft roll of it out of her mouth. “ _Luca_.”

His name is somehow just as warm as the steam in the shower, lingering like the scent around her. One that she’d find on him, she knows, in his hair and on his skin, just like it’s on hers now.

It’s a strange thought, an unavoidable image behind her eyelids, while she tilts her head back to rinse the shampoo from her hair. Him right where she is, soap sliding over his skin, his dark hair slick and wet, the thick of his throat as he tilts his head back like she is…

Chloe swallows.

She doesn’t know what to _do_ with him, with the unignorable, unavoidable reality that she’s… that she’s attracted to him and the real, absolute truth that he’s… dangerous. That he _kidnapped_ her. That she’s pouring his _conditioner_ into her palm and slicking it into her hair. That the man she met by chance online… is the same man that’s keeping her here. That—

That might not have any intention of letting her _go._

But then, why keep her? What can Chloe give him other than the obvious?

She blinks water out of her eyes and looks around his bathroom, sliding her hands through her hair, easing out the conditioner, her hair smooth and soft as it slides through her fingers.

Everything in his bathroom is as sleek and smooth as her hair feels now; the stone-grey walls and shiny marble floors, the massive white tub sitting in front of more floor to ceiling windows that show the stretching New York landscape.

Sighing and tilting her head back into the spray one more time, Chloe pulls in a breath before turning to the shower controls on the wall and smacking a few buttons until the water shuts off.

Wrapping herself up into one of the fluffy white towels, she grabs up her damp dress and underwear before she slips out of the shower. And even though the towel feels amazing, she can’t help that little bit of irritation that sits inside of her for all the obvious wealth around her.

_We’re selling them a perfect little idea._

Everything around her is already perfect. Luxurious. Completely outside of any dream for _more_ that she’s ever had.

There’s _nothing_ perfect about Chloe.

The sinks are wide and bowl-shaped, made of spun, tinted glass that sits on top of the vanity. Chloe flicks on a long gold tap, shivering in the chill outside of the glassed-in shower and watches the water roll around the curve of the bowl before sinking down the drain.

There’s toothpaste in a little holder, one toothbrush, an electric razor beside a normal razor and little jars lined up along the top of the vanity. She slides her fingers over them before giving in to her curiosity and picking one up. It’s a thick, white cream moisturizer with a faint, clean smell. She swipes her finger into it and steals some, rubbing it onto her face and not feeling at all guilty for the little theft.

There’s a bottle of cologne next to it, and even knowing what she’s going to smell, she brings up to her nose and finds— _him_ , (thick-muscles, warm skin through a crisp shirt, hard arms curved beneath her body, a hot hand on her ankle.)

It smells good. Too good. She regrets smelling it almost as soon as she inhales, and it clinks when she sets it down on the counter too quickly.

Pushing out a breath at the flicker of heat in her stomach, Chloe steals a bit of toothpaste and rubs her finger over her teeth before sticking her mouth under the tap to slurp some water. It feels a bit ridiculous in such a nice bathroom, but it makes her feel a little more like herself. A little more normal in all the glass and marble and luxury around her.

Like eating mac and cheese in some fancy restaurant.

Licking her teeth and pulling a face at herself in the mirror, Chloe steals a bit more of his moisturizer and kind of hopes it’s stupid expensive as she rubs it over her face and neck.

 _Serves you right,_ she says to Kostin in her head, _forceful protection my ass._

It’s a petty moment, but it makes her feel better.

The door to the bathroom is shut, but it opens with a quiet click as she limps into his bedroom, her eyes darting around like he’ll be waiting for her, but there’s no one in the room, just a small pile of clothes folded neatly on his bed.

Fingering the edge of the fabric, she holds it up; it’s a soft, light grey pullover that’s obviously his, based purely on the size of it. She glances back to the bathroom, thinking about just putting her dress back on, but she knows it’s damp and she’s wet and cold and it would be nice to have more than just a little slip of a silk dress on when she sees him again.

Like protection, sort of. (In all of a sweater’s ability to protect her from anything more than a breeze.)

Pulling it on over her head, Chloe slips the towel out from beneath it. The sweater is soft, buttery soft against her skin and it skims over her thighs and hangs over the edges of her hands in that comforting, over-large sweater way.

It’s nice.

She tries not to focus on it too much, instead, she reaches for the soft cotton pants that are folded on the bed; she steps into them only to realise they are far, far too big.

She laughs at just how _big_ it is on her, rolling the waistband a few times before folding the legs of the pants too, but they still puddle around her feet and they feel seconds from sliding off her hips.

A quick rap on the door startles her, and she barely has a chance to look up before the door opens and Kostin steps in; Chloe scowls on reflex, her hand tightening on the waist of his pants. She’s torn between feeling ridiculous in her— _his_ — clothing and angry at the reminder of where she is and why she’s here at all.

He leans against the doorframe, his hands tucked into his pockets, a simple pair of dark-grey trousers and a white button-up with the sleeves rolled.

Her stomach churns between embarrassment and anger as his eyes sink, slow and steady down her body. The slip of the sweater over her shoulder, the drape of the sleeves, pooling around her wrists, bunched up where her hand cinches the front of the pants. The rolled hem of the legs and her little, pink-toed feet barely peeking out.

Chloe’s cheeks warm even as she tries to hold onto her anger. “It’s too big.”

His lips twitch as he looks at her, tearing his eyes away and looking like he’s fighting a smile before he pushes off the door frame and moves towards her; it takes everything in her not to step back as he gets closer to her, her head tilting up until he leans down— to pick her up, she realises too late— his arm beneath her knees and back, just like before.

“Maybe you’re just too small,” he says too close to her, but there’s no time to react to anything before he’s setting her down again on the top of the very soft bed behind her. His bed.

She braces one of her arms behind her as his arms come out from beneath her, curling her fingers into the duvet, trying to ignore where she is and how he smells, (like that bottle in the bathroom, that she shouldn’t have smelt), and the fact that she’s overly aware of his body and skin and _him_ , just him, in all the places he touches her and doesn’t.

He moves away, she tries to keep her eyes on her own hand, curled into the overly-large pants, but they flick up to him as he walks into the bathroom; the width of his shoulders and the shift of his back muscles beneath the button-up.

She can see straight into the bathroom from where she’s sitting, and she watches him glance at her dress and her underwear, left on the counter next to the sink, before reaching for the first-aid kit he left out earlier.

 _Right_ , she thinks, her _ankle_.

She looks away when he turns but berates herself for it and glares at him as he walks back towards her. “Are we going to talk about you kidnapping me or just going to keep pretending you didn’t?”

His lips twitch, he stops in front of her, setting the first aid kit down on the bed next to her before popping the lid and reaching into it for an ace bandage.

“We can talk about whatever you want, Chloe,” he says before he sinks to his knees in front of her.

Chloe blinks. The image of him sticks behind her eyelids, the broadness of his shoulders, the angle of his face, dark lashes, tan skin… the way a few strands of hair fall out of place, coming loose from the way he styles his hair, thick and dark and brushed up and back to one side.

She blinks again, fighting the urge to flinch at the stroke of his thumb over her ankle. The way his hand cups it. _Covers_ it, more like. There’s a bruise around it, more obvious in the daylight in his bedroom; she isn’t sure if he’s looking at it…or caught the way she is, just in the size difference between them.

It’s so fucked up, isn’t it? _All of this_ , she thinks. They weren’t ever supposed to meet.

It feels so… _unreal_.

She swallows. “So, you’re admitting you kidnapped me.”

His lips twitch again, and he places the end of the ace bandage against the top of her foot and holds it in place with the thumb of his other hand. “If that’s what you want to call it, yes. Forceful protection does have a nice ring to it, though.”

 _Fucking Tattoo,_ she thinks as she glares, moving between his face and his hand _._ “It’s _kidnapping_.”

He nods. “It is.”

She doesn’t know what to do with how easy he agrees. With how easy he says it. _Yes, it’s kidnapping. Yes, I kidnapped you._

“Why?” she pushes out, watching his hands, the slow unravelling of the bandage covering her skin with each slow, careful pass around her ankle.

He reaches the end, his thumb coming down to hold the bandage before he uses one of the little metal pieces to latch the end of it in place.

The silence stretches, one of his hands stays on her ankle as he lifts his eyes to look at her. They’re grey, caught in the light, something almost hazel leading towards the pupil as they shift, just a little, almost unnoticeably over her face.

“How old are you?”

Chloe blinks. “Twe—”

“Don’t lie.”

Her stomach tenses, his voice low and steady in a way that says he’s used to being listened to. “I’m not.”

Her skin prickles as he looks at her, her hand curling tighter in the waist of her borrowed pants, her heart beating off-kilter.

“You,” he says slowly, heavily, like she can’t and shouldn’t argue. “Are not twenty-one.”

Her mind spins as she looks at him. Was there anything in her text messages? Her and Kayla were always careful about what they said unless it was face-to-face.

Her name, obviously, should have been part of that rule.

“I—”

His hand tightens, just a little. “Don’t. Lie.”

She swallows. _Don’t try it,_ he’d warned, when she’d made a break for the door.

She holds his eyes, that hazel-tint right around his pupil. “Seventeen.”

The room goes silent, _seventeen_ sitting like a hangnail between them. Chloe wants to pick at it until it’s gone. It feels too personal; like he can see too much of her. This small girl drowning in oversized clothes, a borrowed dress, borrowed heels, grasping at things she doesn’t have in all the places she shouldn’t be.

Wrong place, wrong time, reaching for things she doesn’t have.

Seventeen feels too honest.

His jaw tenses, his head dropping as he lifts a hand to scrub over his face, letting out a long exhale before pushing up to his feet with a muttered curse that sounds like something _seven-fucking-teen._

 _“Christ,”_ he curses again, his eyes hard and sharp when he looks down at her. “The fuck were you doing with Peter at my club? Or on that fucking site?”

Chloe grits her teeth, because _fuck him—_ and pushes up to her feet as her anger spikes. “Screw you! I didn’t even know it was your club! And that’s none of your fucking business! You kidnapped me, remember?”

She jabs a sharp finger into his stomach because it’s closer than his chest. It’s hard beneath the poke, and she thinks it might’ve hurt her more than him. But she does it again, even harder. “You don’t get to just… just kidnap me and dig into my shit! It’s my life, not yours!”

Kostin says nothing, he towers over her while she glares up at him, and there’s a stretch of silence where he just… _looks_ at her— and Chloe’s anger gets eaten away at in the silence, leaving her grasping at it, trying to cling on to it, scowling at him, _lost_ at the complete _lack_ of reaction in him.

There’s nothing on his face, just the weight of his gaze. And then, like he’s decided on something, he bends down to pick her up. His arm thick and warm, curving under her back and legs again.

Chloe tenses because _what and how does this keep happening—_ but all he does is carry her out of the room.

“Seriously,” she huffs, even as her hand curls on his shoulder to help steady herself in his arms. “You guys have issues. I can walk.”

Kostin snorts but doesn’t say anything. She decides it’s not worth the fight, and being back downstairs is better, anyway. It’s closer to the door. Which is one step closer to freedom than she was before, isn’t it?

She gets a glimpse of the other half of the upper floor, a sitting area, more glass, a treadmill — and then he’s carrying her back downstairs and into the kitchen area.

He sets her on the stool that Tattoo— _Aleksey_ — was sitting on and steps away once he’s sure she stable. Chloe twists in her seat, watching as Kostin moves to the oven and grabs a hand towel, covering his hand before pulling out a plate and pulling off the tinfoil on top of it before setting it in front of her.

It’s eggs and bacon.

Another plate comes out a second later. Toast.

“It’s hot, careful,” he says, before tossing the foil away.

Chloe opens her mouth— and then shuts it. Looking down at the plate in front of her, back up at Kostin. Her stomach growls. Her mind spins.

 _What the fuck,_ she thinks. _What the fuck._

He pushes a fork towards her. “Eat.”

 _“What the fuck_ ,” Chloe chokes out, something caught between disbelief and a laugh. He doesn’t answer, just eases back in the seat, one arm hooked over the back of the stool, the other arm resting on the island’s black-marble top.

“Eat, Chloe, then we’ll talk.”

“Or— or we could talk _now_ ,” she says, her eyebrows climbing her forehead, her stomach growling, because she _is_ a little past hungry and moving into starving and it’s smells so _good._ “Like, instead of acting like—”

“It’ll be easier for you once you’ve eate—”

“You said that about the shower!” It comes out harder than she meant it to but something’s fraying inside of her and it’s getting harder to keep it down by the minute. Anger, fear, nerves— disbelief more than anything, a twist of reality that hasn’t settled properly. His face, his voice— _him, just him—_ doesn’t belong anywhere but on her screen or in her head. “None of this easier!”

He says nothing, meeting her eyes and waiting. Calm and steady like he hasn’t kidnapped her, like he isn’t keeping her here— like the way he agreed so easily to Chloe calling it _kidnapping_.

“I’m trying to make this as easy for you as I can,” he says, his voice as low as the way he said, _open your eyes, baby._

Chloe swallows, her skin prickling with warmth at the memory, at the tone— she hates how easily it rolls inside of her.

“So eat, and then we’ll talk. Alright?”

Chloe pushes out a breath and picks up the fork; thinking about being shoved into a car, about fighting, about the ache in her ankle. Anything and everything to remind her of reality.

The eggs are perfect and she hates him for it, just a little. She meets his eyes while she chews, picking up the toast next and taking an overly large bite. “Happy?” she pushes out around the bulge of bread in her cheek.

He looks at her, and for some reason, there’s something in his eyes that makes her think about his words in his second visit to her chatroom: _I would pay an obscene amount of money to spank you._

Her pulse fucking _trips_.

Chloe looks away first, her throat dry and tight when she swallows the toast.

Next to her, Kostin is silent when he stands, she can’t look at him while he moves away; a clink of glasses, a shutting cupboard, the _whirr_ of water from a dispenser. The clink of the glass being set down in front of her.

Chloe takes the drink silently, swallowing half of it down before she feels like she can look at him again.

She picks at the bacon, watching the grease on her fingers as she tears off a piece before popping it into her mouth; the silence stretching as she scrambles for something to say. To throw something back at him, throw him off balance the way she feels.

But the silence _stretches_.

Kostin chest shifts with a breath before he lets it out slowly from his nose. “Chloe,” he starts, and when her eyes flick up to his, he pauses, his eyes flicking over her face. Whatever he hesitates over fades as quickly as it came up, and he continues like the pause never happened.

“I’m going to make this as easy for you as I can, but you need to understand that you don’t have a choice, not really. You’re going to be staying here—”

Chloe swallows a salty piece of bacon that suddenly feels twice as oily as it should. _It’s not surprising is it,_ she thinks, y _ou knew— kidnapping is kidnapping. No matter how nice or— or attractive the kidnappers are._

And isn’t it like, 90% of all murders are done by people who know each other?

He didn’t say anything about killing her, though, did he?

Her heart still double-times in her chest, a buzz in her ears as her mind spins— Do they know each other? Does them getting off to each other count as knowing each other?

Did he even get off?

 _Jesus_ , she thinks, _Does it matter? He can kill you without knowing you. What the fuck, Chloe._

 _And,_ some traitorous, unwanted part of her mind says, _he saved you, didn’t he? He saved you. Pulled you back, held you close, took aim and fired back._

“—staying here until I’ve dealt with what happened last night—”

Her mind buzzes.

“—and it’s safe for you to leave—”

Chloe somehow finds her voice. “I promise I won’t say anything if you let me—”

“You understand why I can’t trust that?” He shakes his head. “It’s not up for debate. You’re here. You’re staying here.” He looks away, tapping his thumb on the marble-top before he looks back at her. “But this doesn’t have to be difficult. We can figure something out that makes everybody happy.”

Her face twists, disbelieving and incredulous. “ _What_? It’s kidnapping! You just said— how the Hell could I be _happy_ about any of this? You can’t just _decide_ to keep me here! I have a life. Friends and— my parents, they’ll wonder where I am. They’ll report—”

Kostin shifts in his seat, resting both forearms on the island, it brings him closer to her and she fights the urge to edge away from him.

“You have five numbers saved in your phone. Your roommate, Kayla. She’s in med-school, right? Works part-time at a club. You… aren’t in school, even though you should be, at seventeen. No parent’s numbers saved, no indication you talk to them. Which means you’re a runaway or you just aren’t close to them. Fake ID—”

Chloe sucks in a breath, a sinking feeling inside of her as she realises just how much he went through her phone. “Shut up.”

“— that you use for camming, even though you could use it to work in the same club your roommate works at, which I can’t quite figure out because you don’t really like camming, do you? Unless it’s just the obvious, that you know, no matter what that ID says, you don’t fucking look twenty-one.”

“Fuck you,” she pushes out, as steadily as she can. “You don’t know anything about me.”

His eyes are heavy, Chloe glares at him, refusing to look away despite how heavy it is. Like he’s peeling her open, one truth at a time.

“I know enough.” He sits back, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m not trying to be an asshole here, Chloe. But you have to understand the position I’m in. The position you’re in. You’re staying here regardless of what choice you pick.”

 _Choice_ , she thinks, _what choice?_

“Last night, you lied to your roommate about where you were and what you were doing. Which means you want or need the money for more than just rent. I think we can work something out that benefits both of us.”

“What?” she frowns, not following what he means until it clicks. “You want to— to _hire me?”_

She cuts off with a laugh. “After you _kidnapped_ me you think I’m just going to roll over—”

“No, I _don’t_ think that. I don’t _want_ that. You’re going to live here, with me. I’ll cover any costs that come up, any income lost from your jobs, all you have to do is name what your time is worth to you.”

Chloe blinks, her mind spinning as she stares at him. “You’re serious.”

Kostin looks at her, waiting.

“You’re crazy,” she breathes out. “Like actually crazy.”

She thinks, _no—_

_No, I’m done._

She slips off the stool, her borrowed pants slipping dangerously on her hips. She must look ridiculous, in the oversized clothes, her hand twisted into the waist—but she moves towards the door, not bothering to even say anything,

Neither does Kostin, but she feels the weight of his eyes the whole time. (From the corner of her eye, he sighs, pushes his hand through his hair, the stool scraping the floor as he pushes back and stands.)

The door isn’t locked, Chloe pulls it open and slips out into the hall. He doesn’t chase her. (She’s aware of it, somewhere in the back of her mind, that he isn’t chasing her, but it’s stuck beneath the tumble of her thoughts and her focus on just… just _leaving_ —just getting _away_ from all of it. _Everything_.) The elevator gleams silver in front of her. She presses the button, it lights up and her eyes flick up to the top, to count down the floors, curling her hand into the waist of the pants.

And waits.

The button flicks off.

She presses the button again, her stomach sinking.

It flicks off almost immediately. Her stomach plummets. She smacks the control panel, her frustration building into a little caught noise in her throat.

Turning on her heel and wincing at the twinge in her angle, she looks around; there’s a door at the end of the hall, she saw it when they brought her in and she moves towards it, catching sight of Kostin in the corner of her eye, standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and leaning against the frame and watching her.

All silent and too tall and imposing in that untouchable way of his.

She ignores him, moving down the hallway towards the door, but she knows before she gets there, that it won’t open.

And it doesn’t.

When her hand comes off the door, Kostin is there behind her, she turns around, her mouth tight as she glares up at him, head tilting as he gets closer. When he reaches for her, she smacks his hand away.

He tries again and Chloe slaps harder.

It devolves quickly into something almost childish, her smacking away his reaching hands until he makes an exasperated noise in his throat and backs her into the door. It thuds against her back and it’s barely a second more before he has her wrists pressed together, caught in one of his hands, his fingers easily circling the thin of her wrists.

He looks down at her, Chloe grits her teeth and stares at his chest, her breath puffing from her nose angrily.

If there’s an uneven little hitch to it, he’s nice enough not to say anything.

“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” he says lowly. It isn’t hard for Chloe to understand what he means. “But it’s better you know.”

 _No way out_.

She definitely would have freaked out this morning if she’d made it into the hallway after Aleksey had just left, only to find herself stuck with no way out. An elevator that somehow doesn’t work for her and a locked stairwell that’s probably all sorts of illegal, but then—

They’re like, mob or something, aren’t they? Normal people don’t just kidnap people.

“You can’t keep me here,” she pushes out, she isn’t sure if it sounds desperate or angry or sad. Some mix of all them. _Not enough anger_ , she thinks, to make it as sure as she wants it to be.

“I can.” Kostin sighs; it would almost funny how tall he is, how she’s closer to his ribs than his face— if it wasn’t also a little terrifying to know that he could do literally anything to her and she wouldn’t stand a chance in fighting him off.

Her stomach sours and she swallows around the thought _. He hasn’t hurt you,_ she thinks, _he saved your life, didn’t he_?

_Pulled you back, held you close, took aim and fired back._

_Not that kind of bad,_ Aleksey said.

“Chloe, look at me.” It’s not a request, not a question, not really. He waits. Chloe grits her teeth before flicking her eyes up from his chest to his face. “I don’t want to force you. But I can. And I will.”

She bites her cheek to ignore the feeling in her stomach. “I don’t know anything. I had nothing to do with— with the— the shooting or—”

He huffs a little laugh, something humoured and almost fond flickering across his face. “I don’t think you did, sweetheart.”

She blinks. “Then why…”

“Because I have to be sure,” he says, easing his grip on her wrists slowly, like he’s checking to see if she’ll fight or bolt, or she’s some feral little kitten ready to swipe at him.

When she doesn’t, Kostin leans closer, and, like she’s some sad little toddler, scoops her up as he straightens to his full height.

“You understand? I have to be sure. Wanting to believe you didn’t, wanting to trust you won’t go to the police, and knowing for sure, are two different things.”

Chloe doesn’t bother fighting him, curling her hand into the front of his shirt, feeling weirdly drained, her mind spinning. How the hell is she going to dig herself out of this one? It’s too crazy to believe. None of it makes sense. “I didn’t do anything. I promise.”

He’s quiet as he carries her back into his loft. “Promises don’t keep people alive in my life, sweetheart. It’s not how it works. And that’s not even the issue, not really.”

He sets her down in the kitchen, right next to the island, waiting until she gets her feet steady under her own weight before he turns away. _The eggs are probably cold_ , she thinks absently, glancing at her plate with her one-bite missing toast, but she’s not really hungry any more.

“Then what is?” she asks, shifting to watch him as he pulls open a drawer near the fridge.

“You were with me,” he says like that’s supposed to make sense to her. To clear it all up.

It doesn’t. 

“They had to have seen me with you. Had to have seen me pull you back. And that will make you a target. I don’t show interest in— It was a mistake to take you out of the club.”

_A mistake._

“A mistake.” The words sit bitter and sharp in her mouth. She doesn’t know if he means saving her or leaving with her. She isn’t sure which is worse. Regretting saving her is worse, isn’t it? It should be. But somehow she’s more caught on the thought, the itchy little idea that he regrets that moment. (Him holding her coat. The way he looked her, standing in front of her, her head tilted up to look at him. His fingers slipping one button closed and then another.)

She stares at his shoulders, the broad line of his back as his hand moves in the drawer. She hates that she cares at all if he regrets it. That she isn’t sure what to do with her disappointment, like a bitter pit in her stomach, a numb thing in her fingers.

_A mistake._

He must catch something in her voice because his head turns to look at her. He frowns, his eyes searching her face.

“Jesus, Chloe,” he exhales on a low breath, and moves to stand in front of her. His hand comes up, his fingers tilting up her chin, his thumb warm, the tip just sitting beneath her bottom lip. (Her belly tenses, but it’s not nerves or anger, it’s warm and heart-tripping with the smell of him, the heat of him so close.)

“A _mistake_ letting them see me with you. Not a mistake saving your fucking _life_.”

She swallows, her hand coming up to push at his wrist, turning her head away. Thinking about the squeal of tires, Aleksey fighting her limbs, Kostin’s rough warning, _don’t try it._

Her anger slips and slides and she hates how hard it is to hold on to.

“I wasn’t _with_ you,” she forces out as his hand slips away from her chin, there’s something in it, but she can’t tell what it is. “I was with Grace and Peter. You didn’t even—”

She thinks back. Other than that first look, he didn’t look at her again. Not once. He didn’t look at her or speak to her or make any indication he even _remembered_ her.

“I wasn’t with you,” she says more firmly. “You’re lying. You didn’t even _look_ at me. Not once after—” _After that first look._

Kostin looks at her for a too-long beat of a moment, and then he’s reaching down between them— Chloe smacks his hand away when his hand touches her hip, the waist of her— _his_ pants— but he just huffs and tucks two fingers into the waist and tugs her towards him, it jolts her a step closer—

There’s a noise in her throat, a little shocked sound as she braces a hand on his arm, when he does it again, his eyes on her face, even as he twists his hand, knotting the soft material of the pants in his fist to cinch it tighter on her hips.

His knuckles brush her hip, his nails scrape lightly over that slope of skin between her hip and her mound and she sucks in a breath at the feeling.

His eyes sink down, his forearm shifting beneath her palm as he wraps the elastic over a bunched-up section in the waist of the pants, over his hand, his fingers long and thick, the veins—

Chloe bites her cheek at the flicker of heat that travels right through her and settles like a pulse-beat between her hips.

He tugs her again, one final wrap of the elastic, jolting a breath out of her. She doesn’t think it was necessary, but Kostin’s eyes flick back up to her face, she can feel it, but she can’t tear her eyes away from his hands as he tucks the bunched-up bit of pants into the waist.

“We’ll have to get you clothes that fit,” he says quietly, and it takes her a minute— his nails sliding back up that slope, knuckles brushing her hip and out of her pants as his hand falls back to his side— for his words to sink it.

Like it’s a done fucking deal. He’ll buy her clothes like Chloe’s just going to sit here and let him kidnap her. Keep her. For… for however long it takes to solve a drive-by shooting in, what? The criminal underworld of New York?

It’s so absurd she laughs, but it sours quickly as he stands up, their eyes meeting again.

“I wasn’t with you!” She says, sharper and harder. Her anger spikes with embarrassment, with being so easily… so easily _caught_ by his hands and skin and— and _him—_

“You’re a fucking liar! This is just some sick, twisted— twisted— _something_! They don’t give a shit about me! I wasn’t with you, I was with Carl! You didn’t even look at me! At all! You ignored me all fucking night! Like you didn’t— Like we—”

_Like you didn’t pay a stupid amount of money to watch me get off. Twice. Like you didn’t make me come, just your voice, just the idea—_

She puffs an angry breath, her skin tightening and prickling in embarrassment for a stupid, silly fantasy of a man that’s— that’s dangerous. That’s bad. That _kidnapped her._

That she’s somehow, _still_ attracted to.

“I wasn’t with you.” She forces it out, hard and _done._ “And you didn’t even _speak_ to me, you didn’t even _look_ at me, not once all night. You could’ve at any point. But you _didn’t_. You let me— I was— I was with Carl right up until—”

Kostin is silent, his eyes narrowed, watching her.

Chloe’s mind spins through the night. _Kostin. Carl. Dancing. Kostin and Peter at the bar. Carl leaving angry. Kostin behind her. Peter laughing and nodding and clapping Kostin on his shoulder._

“Until—”

She looks up at him. He’s waiting, silent and still and watching her. Like he’s just… waiting for her to get it out.

_Kostin at the bar, Peter looking over at her and laughing. Nodding. Kostin tilting his head towards the way they came in. Peter nodding, calling Carl over. Carl leaving. Kostin holding her coat open—_

“You bought me from Peter.” She blinks. “You bought me. That’s why Carl—”

Kostin scoffs, his face twisting. “Like I was going to let that little prick fuck you, Chloe. Come on.”

She blinks; feels stuck in syrup, everything rolling slowly into one big sticky _mess_ as her mind rolls through the night before.

“I thought—”

( _Kostin’s eyes on her, the weight of them and then… nothing. Nothing all night.)_

“You’re an _asshole,_ ” she says on a breath, it slips out of her. Her mouth opening and shutting, opening again with disbelief. “You let me think— the whole night— I thought you didn’t remember me! That I was just some fucking— random girl you— you _asshole!_ ”

She shouldn’t be this mad, she thinks, not after what he did, the guns, the shooting. The _kidnapping_ —

But it’s there inside of her anyway.

“You _do_ want me. You don’t really think I had anything to do with it. You just want an excuse!”

Kostin looks down at her. A tendon in his jaw tenses and eases.

“And this is like… like some fucked up Pretty Woman shit?”

He frowns, but Chloe’s mouth won’t stop once she starts. She laughs again, but it’s unsteady, she _feels_ unsteady. Jittery and uneven, like she could go a thousand ways at once.

“You _bought_ me and brought me here and now you’re making up some fucked up excuse—” She shoves at him. He doesn’t move at all, not even a little when she does it again. “Is this like a kink for you, huh? Buying girls. _Kidnapping_ girls and—”

His hand is on her arm, tight and hard, pulling her closer as he tilts his head down, his voice hard and low. “Stop talking.”

Chloe shoves at him, pulling away, ignoring the throb in her ankle when he pushes her back into the island to trap her between him and it. “Fuck you!”

He makes a rough noise in his throat, his other hand landing heavy on the back of her neck, his thumb tilting her jaw up as she pushes her palms against his ribs, but he’s heavy and immovable, trapping her against the island.

“Listen, sweetheart, you don’t have a choice. You’re here. You’re staying here until I decide to let you go. You can treat this as kidnapping or you can take advantage of the situation you’re already in. You stay, you behave, you name a fucking dollar amount and you get paid. It’s a job. Nothing more.”

“You think I’m gonna fuck you now—”

He breathes out a laugh, but it’s low and not humoured at all. “I told you. I have no interest in fucking you, you hear me? None. I don’t fuck _underage girls.”_

“Yeah, right—” she bites out, even as her mind spins on his words. Her anger slipping into confusion again, into that unsteady, lost, adrift feeling of having no idea what the fuck is going on.

“You’re here so they can’t use you against me, understand? So I don’t have to deal with the headache of you running your mouth to the cops. That’s all this is—”

“You’re full of shit!” she pushes out, pulling away from him and crossing her arms, feeling jittery and hot and cold all at once. “Why do you _care_! Why do you give a fuck—”

He grabs her arm, holding her in front of him. “Because I don’t need some teenage fucking girl’s blood on my hands,” he says, low and heavy. It’s not angry or loud, just… heavy. “You can hate me for it all you want. But it’s done. You’re here until I say it’s safe for you to leave.”

She grits her teeth, glaring up at him. “Kayla won’t just let me disappear! She’ll—”

Except she can’t go to the cops, can she? Chloe’s mind spins with the realisation. Kayla will lose her mind, she’ll give up everything to look for Chloe. She’ll lose her school year, everything they’ve worked for—

Kayla won’t go to the cops, but she’ll do everything else, _anything_ else to find Chloe. (She knows, as sure as anything, because it’s exactly what Chloe would do for her. _Anything. Everything.)_

Chloe swallows the bitter bile building at the back of her throat, looking away from him, hugging herself as his words dig into her skull. “You’re right,” she says slowly. “I don’t have— you could keep me and there wouldn’t be anyone— But… Kayla, she’s—”

She doesn’t know how to say it— he doesn’t _deserve_ to know it—

“She won’t just let me disappear, she’s not just my roommate. She’s— we’re all each other has.”

Kostin looks at her, his gaze searching and weighted when she moves her eyes up to his. “You’re wrong if you think she won’t look for me. You’re wrong if you think I won’t take every chance I can get trying to get away.”

“Then you’ll make an excuse, you’ll lie to her like you did the other night. Or you’ll tell her something a bit closer to the truth. That you’ve agreed to stay here for an indefinite amount of time in exchange for—”

She shakes her head. “I can’t— I have a life— an apartment—” _fucking Lackley_ , she thinks, fucking Lackley and her ID— he could ruin everything her and Kayla built, just as much as Kayla searching for Chloe could. “I can’t stay here. I _can’t._ I have to— I’ll be careful, I’ll… cut my hair or something. Dye it.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“I can’t stay here. I have rent and all my stuff is... can’t you just give me a bodyguard if you’re so worried? Have someone watch me?”

“No.”

“ _Why not?_ ” It slips out frayed and pitching high, Chloe bites her cheek for the sound of it.

“Because that’s not the deal, Chloe.”

“The deal being… I stay here. With you. For no reason. And you… pay me. For nothing.”

He nods.

She pushes out a breath. “This is insane, you know that right? They probably wouldn’t ever even find me. I didn’t even use my real name.”

“Are you willing to take that chance? You think they’d just kill you?” His eyes flick over her and he steps closer, bracing his hands on either side of her on the counter. It’s hard not to push back into the counter behind her, but she holds herself still, her fingers curling in the sleeves of her sweater. “You think men in my line of work would just kill you? You’re not a stupid girl, Chloe. You know exactly what they’d do.”

She does. They’ve all heard the stories. Seen the girls. The boys. The absent-eyed, the bruised. The ones that fall between the cracks… or get pushed in. “And you’re better?”

“I’m not going to touch you. I told you.”

“Just kidnap me.”

His mouth twitches and he shakes his head, exasperated. “Take the job, sweetheart. Take advantage of what I’m offering you. Money. No strings. A nice place to stay. Decent company,” his lips tilt; he’s making a joke, she thinks, but she can’t find it even remotely funny. “I’m not asking for anything other than you to behave.”

She chafes at the word. Like she’s a toddler. Like she’s back in a church pew with a foster mother who thought children should be seen and not heard unless it was _please_ and _thank you_ and _Amen._

“You don’t want _anything_? You expect me to believe that?”

He pushes away from her and shrugs. “Not to fight you every day or find you breaking windows or doors to get out, maybe.” His lips tilt more, a crooked smile that she hates how familiar it feels. (Through her computer screen, tinted blue.) “I think you’d scale the elevator cables, given the chance.”

Chloe sends him a withering glare. “Hard to do that when the fucking thing won’t even _open._ ”

He grins. “Security is very important.”

“Yeah, except it’s meant to keep people out. Not _in_.”

He laughs and shrugs before turning away and picking up her plate and scraping it into the garbage tucked away into a drawer that slides out beneath the sink. “Maybe.”

“Literally, like, the exact point of security.”

“In some people’s lives, sure.” He moves towards the fridge, pulling out a carton of eggs and setting them next to the stove before flicking it on and grabbing a pan from another drawer. “My life isn’t exactly normal, sweetheart.”

 _No shit,_ she thinks.

“What are you _doing_?” Chloe bites out, watching as he grabs a bowl, an egg, that sharp little crack of a shell on the side of the bowl.

“Making you breakfast.” His eyes flick to a brick wall in the space next to the kitchen that she guesses could be called a living room, even if it flows from one section to another. There’s a big, decorative piece on the wall. A clock, she realises as one of the long metal arms moves forward. “Or brunch, really.”

“You’re literally crazy. I’m not hungry.”

“I’m hoping your logic might kick in once you’ve eaten something,” he says with a tilt to his mouth, Chloe’s head spins at the shift in the conversation. “Then maybe we can work out the details. Instead of arguing things that aren’t going to change.”

Her eyebrows tilt up. “You don’t think I’m just going to say yes to this, do you?”

He huffs a laugh, grabbing a fork to beat the eggs in the bowl. “I know you won’t. Not easily, anyway. But I’m a very good negotiator, sweetheart.”

Chloe shakes her head, narrowing her eyes at him while he beats the eggs, adding salt and pepper— it’s all so fucking unbelievable, she doesn’t know what to _do_ with it. With _him_. With _any_ of it.

“How’d you end up with Peter last night?” he asks after a beat of silence, dumping the eggs into the pan and grabbing a spatula. He glances at her when she doesn’t answer, his lips quirking. “Not yet, huh? Alright.”

“What happens if I don’t agree?”

“Nothing,” he says, moving the eggs in the pan as they cook, his arm shifting; she watches, her stomach grumbling as the smell gets stronger. “Bread’s in the cupboard there,” he points with the spatula. Chloe hesitates, arms crossed, sticking stubbornly to her anger like it’s gum on the sole of a shoe.

He looks at her again. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you. You stay here. You live with me so I can keep an eye on you. You get nothing out of a shit situation for no reason. I hire some more security. Maybe a tracking bracelet. One of those ankle ones, maybe. You got a preference?”

Chloe glowers at him. He laughs, shaking his head and turning back to the eggs, shifting them in the pan again before shutting off the heat and sliding them onto a plate and grabbing a fork.

“Sit,” he says, with a crooked smile, setting the plate where it was before and moving past her, to his seat. “Eat something. You need it.”

Chloe glowers. Her stomach growls—

He waits, and then huffs a breath, reaching for her and dragging her towards the island, she pulls back but he tugs again and she jerks forward, stepping away from his grip.

“Are you going to be this difficult about everything?” he asks, but there’s still a tilt to his mouth, he doesn’t sound angry, just… curious. Entertained, even.

It makes her scowl. “You could just let me go. That’d be easier for both of us.”

He snorts. “Maybe.”

She has to boost herself up a little, to get on the stool, it’s higher than she realised and glances down at the length of his legs stretched out invading the space near the bottom of the stool. No surprise, she thinks, with the size of him.

The eggs smell good, her stomach grumbles and tightens again, she hasn’t eaten since Grace had ordered smoothies for them for a snack while they got ready for the night ahead— It feels like years ago. Standing with Grace behind her, looking at them both in the mirror. The silky slide of that dress, all her nerves and stupid little hopes.

 _Stupid_ , she thinks.

She touches the fork on the plate with her finger, sliding it forward before picking it up. Kostin watches her through it all, silent and steady next to her as she takes her first forkful and tries her best, despite the taste, to not enjoy it.

But it’s just as good as before. Better maybe, for being made fresh.

She takes another bite, Kostin shifts off the stool, moving to the cupboard and pulling out a loaf of thick bread, wrapped in brown paper; he’s silent as he moves out of sight. Part of her wants to tell him no, to tell him off for assuming. To demand more answers. An explanation. What the fuck he gets out of _any_ of this—

Behind her, she hears the crinkle of the paper, the sharp _shick_ of a knife leaving a holder, the crack of a thick crust, the slide of a knife, the click of a toaster.

Chloe eats her eggs, half of her focus on the man behind her… until the toaster pops and there’s another scrape of a knife, a clink of a plate—

She feels him standing behind her as he sets the toast down beside her. His hand touches her hair, Chloe pulls in a breath, his knuckles brushing the back of her neck as his hand gather some of it into his fist and tugs lightly, tilting her head back.

He looks own at her, his eyes shifting over her face before settling to meet her eyes, blinking up at him, her pulse ticking faster in her neck.

“You don’t need to fight for everything in life,” he says low and warm and steady in that way of his, so sure and calm and absolute. “Get something out of this, Chloe. Let me keep you.”

_Keep you._

Her pulse trips. His eyes shift over her face again, before he eases his grip on her hair and steps away, moving back to sit next to her.

Keep her.

Her pulse is a drum in her ears, an ocean current, the ghost of his knuckles on her neck like they’re still there.

Chloe swallows and tries to steady herself, his words ringing in her ears. The morning rolling through her head. _The shower, his clothes, breakfast— blood on her hands, being tucked into bed_ _— last night, the sunlight in his loft this morning, Aleksey, the car— the club, Grace— Kayla and their apartment— Lackley, her ID, camming— him on her screen, the clink of tokens—_

It all blurs and slides together into—

_Let me keep you._

She picks up the toast and takes a bite.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo much talking this chapter, im sorry! Hope you liked their interactions though, gotta build up that tension, you know haha
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy it! Let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you'd like to see more :)


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